The first known name of the city is Byzantium (Greek: Βυζάντιον, Byzántion), the name given to it at its foundation by Megarian colonists around 657 BCE.[9][18] Megaran colonists claimed a direct line back to the founders of the city, Byzas, the son of the god Poseidon and the nymph Ceroëssa.[18] Modern excavations have raised the possibility that the name Byzantium might reflect the sites of native Thracian settlements that preceded the fully fledged town.[19] Constantinople comes from the Latin name Constantinus, after Constantine the Great, the Roman emperor who refounded the city in 324 CE.[18] Constantinople remained the most common name for the city in the West until the 1930s, when Turkish authorities began to press for the use of “Istanbul” in foreign languages. Kostantiniyye (Ottoman Turkish: قسطنطينيه‎), Be Makam-e Qonstantiniyyah al-Mahmiyyah (meaning “the Protected Location of Constantinople”) and İstanbul were the names used alternatively by the Ottomans during their rule