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Syria, Formerly Called Aram By The Natives

"Syria, Sciam. Syria, formerly called Aram by the natives, and afterward Sciam from the Arabic word, according to more recent geographers—both Syrian and Arab—embraces that whole tract of lands, with the exception of Mesopotamia and Assyria, which is described by Pliny in these words: Next, Syria occupies the coast, once the greatest of lands, and distinguished by many names."

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"Aramean" And "Armenian" In Portuguese Sources

"These things are so. However, what is narrated about Thomas Cana is suspect on many counts: and first of all, he could not have been an Armenian, since he is said to have been a Nestorian, and the Malabars requested not Armenian bishops, but Chaldean ones from the Patriarch of the Nestorians. Perhaps the one whom the Nestorians in Malabar called an Aramean, that is, a Syrian, the Portuguese thought was an Armenian." When analyzing Portuguese accounts of Thomas of Cana and the Malabar bishops, Assemani argued that the Portuguese misinterpreted or misheard the ethnonym Aramean (Aramaeus, the native self-designation of Syriac-speaking Christians) as Armenian (Armenius), because Europeans were much more familiar with Armenia than with the term Aramean.