Because the area of
Lydia in
Asia Minor was supposedly named for a guy called Lydus (we don't know the meaning of Lydus, unfortunately). This is legendary, but the point is that
Lydia was the original form of the name from the get-go.
The area of
Lydia was originally called Maeonia, by which name it was known by
Homer.
Homer called the inhabitants of the area Maeonians;
Herodotus called them Meiones; and other writers called them Maeones. See more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia.
Lydia in the Bible was from Thyatira, oddly enough. In the Old Testament (
Jeremiah,
Ezekiel),
Lydia is called Ludim.
Miranda
"Six hours later I still haven't done my homework, but I did come up with 245 name combos, seven of which I might name my child." — Modified LJ icon quote
Proud adopter of 15 punctuation marks.