Surely you have something better than "we had it first" to explain why it is important to you

You mean that isn't good enough?

I understand what you mean, but it is really all the connotations that go along with the name, all the years of history and books written about it, all the implied meanings that I (we) are after.

EDIT:
Or let me put it this way: the way I see it, we just want to contenue using the meaning the word has had for thousands of years and you (not you explicitly, I'm not blaming) want to give it a new definition altogether.