AHC: Longest-lived hyphenated-named empire?

How long could an empire last with a name that is hyphenated between two or more identities? Most realms with hyphenated names hurried to choose one identity -- the Bactrians, the Crown of Aragon superseding the Catalan principalities, the Crown of Spain being used to refer to the collection of kingdoms, etc.

This would be the state's "shortest name" rather than the often long, overcomplicated titles of many past monarchs.

Historically or speculatively, what empires are possible with hyphenated names and could there be one that lasts for hundreds or thousands of years? The longest lived seems to be the Holy Roman Empire, also called Holy Roman-Germanic Empire, but it was not a centralized realm for very long.

Some examples:

OTL
  • Austro-Hungarian Empire
  • Indo-Greek Kingdom
  • Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
  • Holy Roman-Germanic Empire (contemporary name of the Holy Roman Empire)
  • Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons
  • Dano-Norwegian Union
  • Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth

ATL
  • Gallo-Roman Empire
  • Anglo-French Empire
  • Greco-Persian Empire (Alexander's empire surviving)
  • Turco-Persian Empire (an alternate Seljuks)
 
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The problem is that even if a state with a hyphenated name does end up long-lasting, hyphenated names are usually an invention created long after the fact.

The PLC, probably the longest lasting of the hyphenated states (I don't count the HRE as one, myself - I have not heard anyone refer to it as the Holy Roman-Germanic Empire), was almost never called "Poland-Lithuania" by contemporaries, for example, it's a modern invention. It was Poland to foreigners and Republic/Commonwealth of Both Nations to its inhabitants.
 
Do you mean literally hyphenated or just lots of compartments? Ie Kdm of X-Y versus Kdm of X and Y?
For example, there was no official entity called the Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons.
 
Holy Roman-German Empire would be a strong candidate if Austria is the leading force for German unification and the Empire doesn't get formally abolished following napoleon's successes.

I'd also propose a Franco-Italian empire, which could be more stable than the Austro-Hungarian, because the two main ethnicities have more in common, linguistically certainly and maybe socio-culturally too.
 
Denmark-Norway at nearly 300 years seems a good contender, but even that seems to me a modern invention. I think Austria-Hungary is the best contender as really being called that way by (near-)contemporaries.

And I've also never heard that hyphenated name for the HRE. I have heard HRE, German Empire, and Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, but never a hyphenation before this thread.
 
Do you mean literally hyphenated or just lots of compartments? Ie Kdm of X-Y versus Kdm of X and Y?
For example, there was no official entity called the Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons.
Just multiple compartments, it can be implicitly hyphenated.

Wasn't Alfred the Great considered Rex Anglorum Saxonum?

The problem is that even if a state with a hyphenated name does end up long-lasting, hyphenated names are usually an invention created long after the fact.

The PLC, probably the longest lasting of the hyphenated states (I don't count the HRE as one, myself - I have not heard anyone refer to it as the Holy Roman-Germanic Empire), was almost never called "Poland-Lithuania" by contemporaries, for example, it's a modern invention. It was Poland to foreigners and Republic/Commonwealth of Both Nations to its inhabitants.
I guess Holy Roman Germanic Empire is mainly only used in French and Spanish. There was a period where the HRE called itself the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, though.
 
Which translates as either King of Anglian Saxons or Saxon(ian) Angles or even King of Angles and Saxons. There was no Regnum.
True.

Which makes me wonder -- although perhaps this should be a different thread -- what would have happened if these kinds of "tribal" titles ("of the Angles and Saxons", "of the Franks", "of the Romans" etc.) evolved directly into popular sovereignty instead of being solidified as kingdoms.
 
True.

Which makes me wonder -- although perhaps this should be a different thread -- what would have happened if these kinds of "tribal" titles ("of the Angles and Saxons", "of the Franks", "of the Romans" etc.) evolved directly into popular sovereignty instead of being solidified as kingdoms.
I'm not sure what you mean.
 
I'm not sure what you mean.
In the Early Middle Ages, rulers were sovereigns of peoples ("King of the Franks"). In the High Middle Ages through Enlightenment, rulers became sovereigns of areas of land ("King of France"), instead of peoples. Later, popular sovereignty established some rulers as nominally sovereigns of peoples again ("King of the French").

What if the whole process was skipped and rulers remained sovereigns of peoples/tribes?
 
In the Early Middle Ages, rulers were sovereigns of peoples ("King of the Franks"). In the High Middle Ages through Enlightenment, rulers became sovereigns of areas of land ("King of France"), instead of peoples. Later, popular sovereignty established some rulers as nominally sovereigns of peoples again ("King of the French").

What if the whole process was skipped and rulers remained sovereigns of peoples/tribes?
Oh I see. In which case the concept of borders becomes tied to who lives there. You might then get an uptick in genocide.
 
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