Babylon

Babel is not a mythical city: it is simply the Hebrew name for Babylon, whose ruins are south of Baghdad.

Genesis explains the name through a pun on the Hebrew balal, to confuse, but Babel renders the Akkadian Bab-ilim, gate of the god, the ordinary name of the city. The site lies near Hillah, about fifty miles south of Baghdad, and the tower of the story is usually connected with the ziggurat Etemenanki that stood there. The adjective transfers the confusion of tongues to anything polyglot or incomprehensible.

Coined for what Nebuchadnezzar did to the names of his captives.

The earliest use found so far, in Putnam's Magazine in 1868, describes the renaming of Daniel and his companions with Chaldean names as an attempt to Babylonize them. Later writers use the word for cultural assimilation in general, usually setting it beside Hellenize and Assyrianize. Unlike those two, it never became common, because the empire it names fell in 539 BC and left little to assimilate anyone to.