The name Samsun came into existence after the conquest of the region by the turks. While the name is quoted as Samsun in the 11th and 12th century turkish records, the western documents make reference to a Sampson. It is believed that both words derived from the ancient Amiysos, Aside from the scriptual differences, Samsun seems to have been well accepted during the Ottoman Empire period, through the name of the province was Canik.

SAMSUN BEFORE THE TURKS
Objects found in the excavations indicate that the ghaskas were the first inhabitants of Samsun region where they established, together with the earlier incomers, a small settlement at the mouth of Mert River.
Ghaskas have later been assimilated by the hittites under whose subjugation they had fallen. The Hittite Empire was in its turn destroyed by the phrygians.
Some ancient greek sources assign Samsun and its vicinity to the Amazon woman warriors, claimed to have lived in Çarşamba and Terme plains.
With Roman Empire's division, Amysos came under the byzantine rule that ceded the town to selchuks who permitted the greek and genoese component of the population to remain there within a mutual interest relationship. In fact, selchuks benefited from the christians in seafaring matters while the latter were thus able to transport their imported goods to other ports in the Black Sea in absolute security.

SAMSUN UNDER THE OTTOMANS
The ottoman rule began in Samsun during the reign of Emperor Bayezid I who appointed Alexander (İskender Pasha), son accepting the moslem religion of bulgarian King Shishman.
Upon defeat of Bayezid I by Tamerlane in 1402, the region was pillaged and destroyed by the conquerors.
Emperor Mehmet occupied in 1419 the part of the town christian minority that left the area after having burned it to the ground in 1429 and Samsun entered the ottoman administrative organisation as a region under Sivas Province under the name of Canik and the principalities around the city were later subjugated by the ottomans.
Katip Çelebi's travelogue gives us the following information on Samsun: "Samsun is a famous town on the Black Sea cost right across Kefe. The Amasya River passes east of the town and reaches the sea. The mountain in the south makes a semicircle and joins Black Sea at east and west of the city, which is located on the low plain between this mountain and the sea. It has a castle, several mosques, bath-houses and a bazaar. Quarters are formed by clumps of houses".
The british traveller J. McDonald Kinneir mentions the charming sight of Samsun as "erected under trees in a 4-mile wide bay" and states that the town, with a population of around 2.000, has a castle built probably by the turks, five mosques, a bathhouse and a large hostel for the merchants.
Though a conflagration in 1869 reduced the town into ashes, it recovered from the ordeal rapidly and was reconstructed according to a plan by an architect invited from France. The plan produced a city with alleys vertically intersected by streets on a geometrical plan, though the alleyways are some what narrow to meet teh current needs.
With a paralysed trade, Samsun went through bad days during the First World War, russian fleet shelled it in 1915, and Pontus bands terrorised the region and a british-indian military unit of 4.000 soldiers occupied the city following the Mondros armistice. This unit had however to leave Samsun during the turkish independence war.
The construction of a railroad from Samsun to Arabian Peninsula was under consideration already in the nineteenth century and the first concession was given to a belgian entrepreneur. Subsequently, a french company had taken over the task and had even begun laying tracks. The First World War had brought this work to a standstill. The Republic then took over this task and completed the Samsun -Sivas line in 1932.
The subsequent rail and road expansions made Samsun the starting point of all transportation to and from the Black Sea provinces.