This is something that has always confused me so I wanted to ask.

I was taught that Palestine as a name originated following the Roman conquest and subsequent Jewish expulsion. So I was a bit confused when I saw the region name wasn’t Canaan as I thought that was the contemporary.

Is Palestine an older name, or was there simply not a contemporary name for the general area that was more geographically appropriate.

Not trying to start anything related to the current conflict I swear, I’m just curious.

After the Ottoman Empire collapsed and lost the territory to the British, the British chose the name “Palestine” following Christian European tradition, not an Ottoman designation. Moreover, the Arabic name "Philistin" is a transliteration of "Palestine" that reflects that there is no consonant 'p' nor vocal 'e' (as it sounds in the first 'e' in Palestine) in the Arabic alphabet.

The Roman empire introduced the name by renaming Judea to Palestine as punishment after a failed Jewish rebellion, based on the name of a biblical/historical enemy of the Jews, the philistines. There are plenty of biblical stories about them, including David and Goliath as well as Samson and Dalila. The name was popularized in Europe through the Christian tradition, Christianity being a remnant of the Roman empire.

The irony is that the name of the Philistines, from which Palestine is derived, most likely comes from an Hebrew word that means 'invader'. In Hebrew they are called Pelishtim פלשתים and the land is known as Peleshet פלשת. These words come from the root פלש palash - which in Modern Hebrew means "to invade" as the Philistines were considered to be invading sea-peoples (in both Biblical tradition as well as according historical scholarship). This being one of those frequent cases where the name of a people was given to them by others (an exonym).

EDIT:

additions from the comments:

The Romans were the first to use the name to designate the whole region but previously the Greeks used a similar name derived from the philistines to designate a sub-region located roughly were northern Gaza is now. It is possible the Roman designation was based on the Greek name rather than the philistines name directly.

There are other theories for the origin of the name for the philistines.

An interesting point is that it's possible that the modern Hebrew word for 'invader' comes from the name of the Philistines rather than the other way around.

The Arabic district named after "Falastin" was a direct continuation of a Byzantine administrative unit by the same name and that roughly corresponded to the same area. It is possible the name is a transcription of how the locals described the place by word-of-mouth.

The word 'Hebrew' itself may have had its origin in an Hebrew word meaning 'to cross over' referring to nomad or migrating people.

Regardless of the veracity of the biblical stories, there is plenty of archeological evidence and scholarly work confirming the existence of the Philistines as sea people who controlled several cities in a coastal enclave extending south and north of the current israel-Gaza northern border.