In ancient times was called the Sea of Azov Greeks Meotiyskoe Lake, the Romans Palus Maeotis, Scythians Kargaluk have Meotians Temerinda (which means "mother sea"), followed by the Arabs Nitshlah or Bahr al-Azuf, Turks Bahr el -Assake or Bahr-s Assake (dark blue sea; Sovrem. tour. Azak Denizi), a Genoese and Venetians Mare delle Zabacche (Mare Tanya).

   East Slavs sea became known in the I n. Oe., and they called it his blue sea. After the formation of the principality Tmutarakan sea became known as Russian. With the fall of the principality sea renamed several times (Samakush, Salakar, Mayutis, etc.). At the beginning of XIII century. adopted the name Saksinskoe sea. Tatar-Mongol invaders enlarged collection of names of Azov: Sturgeon Dengiz (sea fish) and Chabak-Dengiz (chabache, sea bream). By some estimates Chabak-Dengiz resulting transformation: chabak - dzybah - Zabaco - Azak - ABC - occurred modern name of the sea (which is doubtful). According to other sources Azak - Turkic adjective meaning low, low, according to other sources, Azak (Turkic mouth of the river), which was transformed into Azau, and then in the Russian Azov. In the interval above the sea of names received more and are as follows: Barel-Az (Dark blue river); Thracian Sea (under the Thracians understood Genoese and Venetians) Sourozh Sea (Surozh called the modern town of Sudak in the Crimea); Kaffskoe Sea (Cuff - Italian colony in place of the modern city of Feodosia in Crimea); Cimmerian Sea (from the Cimmerians); Akdengiz (Turkish, meaning the White Sea). Most significantly, the modern name of the sea comes from the town of Azov.

   On the etymology of the word "scratch", there are several hypotheses: Polovtsian prince named Azuma (Azufa), who was killed during the capture of the town in 1067, under the name of the tribe HAVO (Assa), in turn, occurred as if from Avestan, meaning "quick"; compare the name and with the Turkic word adhan - the "bottom", and Circassian uzev - "neck". Destroy the name of Azov - Auzak. But even in the I. Mr. Oe. Pliny, enumerating in his writings Scythian tribes, the tribe mentions Asoka, similar to the word beginning. It is considered that the modern name of the Azov Sea to the Russian toponomastics came in the early XVII century. thanks chronicle Pimen. And in the beginning it was fixed only for his part (Taganrog Bay), only during the Azov campaigns of Peter I the name of the Sea of Azov stayed for the whole reservoir. The sea gave the name of this village of Azov and Azov and the city of Azov (in the lower reaches of the river Don, Rostov region), settlement Azov and the village harbor porpoises.