The name of Azerbaijan derives from Atropates, a satrap of Persia under the Achaemenid Empire, who was later reinstated as the satrap of Media under Alexander of Macedonia. The original etymology of this name is thought to have its roots in the ancient Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism. In Avestan Frawardin Yasht ("Hymn to the Guardian Angels"), there is a mention of âterepâtahe ashaonô fravashîm ýazamaide, which literally translates from Old Persian as "we worship the Fravashi of the holy Atare-pata".

Atropates ruled over the region of present-day Iranian Azerbaijan. The name "Atropates" itself is the Greek transliteration of an Old-Iranian, probably Median, compounded name with the meaning "Protected by the (Holy) Fire". The Greek name is mentioned by Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, and it is continued as ādurbādagān in the Pahlavi geographical text Shahrestānihā i Erānshahr. The word is translatable as both "the treasury" and "the treasurer" of fire in Modern Persian.