David Wurmser
It was named palaistini (Παλαιστίνι) in Greek because the Greek word for “Wrestler” was palaistes. Greeks named people by translating into Greek what people named themselves. (Canaan is purple, which in ancient Greek was Phoenix, hence Phoenicia). Israel is Isra-El (ישר and אל or … “wrestler with God” — i.e., Jacob). So Palaistini is nothing other than the Greek word for Israel itself. We know this because in the Septuagint, the Greek word for Palaistini (Israel) and Philistine were differently spelled and clearly differentiated.
Sony Thăng
Before Rome renamed it "Palestina," the Greeks called it Palaistinē (Παλαιστίνη). It’s right there in Herodotus—writing in the 5th century BCE. Centuries before the Romans, the Greeks already recognized the region between Phoenicia and Egypt by a name that echoes through