To be fair, the Akritai was the Byzantine Empire's effort to use the local population to defend the land, instead of having to deploy regular Army or mercenaries. It happened to be Muslim states that was the border. It bears no anti-muslim connotations as a word in Greek. In fact the epic of Digenes Akritas, speaks of Basil, an Akritas of a Greek mother and an Arab father (hence the name Digenes, of two descents).

But still, the name is a bad, uninformed choice.

Α better translation is "defender of the borders" or "Knights of the borders". Form "Akri" = edge, border.

It's not Muslim related even at the time they exists.

That's who they had the border with, dude.

I wish malicious interpretations like yours would fail miserably. The word for the soldiers is about them, not who they fought.

Apache is doing pretty well despite them being deathly foes to the Comanche and Texans but I doubt either Texans or Comanches object to the name because of something that happened hundreds of years ago.

I mean I guess we have stop calling things the Great Wall because it repelled incursions from the Manchurians and maybe those people who live in their ancestral lands who were defeated and incorporated into modern Chinese society might feel a tinge of anger…