The study of ancient Greek personal names is a branch of onomastics, the study of the names, and more specifically of anthroponomastics, the study of the names of people. There are hundreds of thousands and even millions of Greek names recorded, making them an important resource for the study of common naming, as well as for the study of the ancient Greeks themselves. These names are found in literary texts, on coins and stamps handling amphoras, on potsherds used in isolation, and, much more, in inscriptions and (in Egypt) on papyrus. This article will concentrate on naming Greek from the 8th century BC, when the evidence began, until the end of the 6th century.
Video Ancient Greek personal names
Name and single name in family
Ancient Greeks usually have one name, but other elements are often added in semi-official contexts or to help identify: patronyms in genitals, or in some areas as adjective formulations. A third element may be added, indicating individual membership in a specific kinship or other grouping, or city of origin (when the person is away from the city). Thus the orator of Demosthenes, when proposing a decree in the assemblies of Athena, is known as "Demosthenes, son of Demosthenes of Paiania"; Paiania is a regional or sub-unit of Attica that belongs to him from birth. If the Americans used the system, Abraham Lincoln would be called "Abraham, son of Thomas of Kentucky" (where he was born). On some rare occasions, if someone is illegitimate or the father of a non-citizen, they may use their mother's name (metronym) instead of their father. Ten days after birth, relatives on both sides are invited to a sacrifice and a party called dekÃÆ'¡t? ( ???? ?? ), 'tenth day'; on this occasion the father officially named the boy.
Demosthenes is unusual in having the same name as his own father; it is more common for names to alternate between generations or between family lines. It is therefore common to name the first son after the paternal grandfather, and the second after the maternal grandfather, uncle, or aunt. A speaker in a Greek court case explained that he had named his four sons after, respectively, his own father, the father of his wife, a relative of his wife, and the father of his own mother. Alternatively, family members may adopt variants of the same name, such as "Demippos, son of Demotimos". The practice of naming children after their grandparents is still widely practiced in Greece today.
Maps Ancient Greek personal names
Giving women names
In many contexts, etiquette requires respectable women to be called wives or daughters of X rather than by their own names. However, on tombstones or dedication, they must be identified by name. Here, the patronymic formula "son X" used for men may be replaced by "X wife", or added as "X daughter, Y wife".
Many women give birth to standardized forms of masculine names, with feminine endings replaced for masculine. Many of the standard names associated with the achievement of certain masculine have the same feminine similarities; colleagues of Nikomachos , "winning in battle", will be Nikomach? . The sense mentioned above to give family members related names is one of the motives for the creation of such feminine forms. There are also feminine names without masculine similarities, such as Glykera "sweet one"; Hedist? "most fun".
Another different way of forming feminine names is the subtle smaller suffix -ion (whereas the corresponding masculine suffix is ​​-), shows the idea of ​​"little thing" : for example, Aristion of aristos "best"; Micrion of micros "small". Perhaps with this expansion of use, female names are sometimes formed from men by a change to a neutral end without a small sense: Hilaron of hilaros , "cheerful".
Name creation
There are five main types of personal names in Greece:
Compound name
Demosthenes are made from two common Greek roots (at least as old as proto-Indo-European structures): demos "people" and stenos "strength". A large number of Greek names have this form, compounded by two clearly recognizable (though sometimes shortened) elements: Nikomachos from nike "victory" and mache i> "battles", Sophokles of sophos "wise, skilled" and kleos "glory", Polykrates from poly "many" and kratos "strength". The elements used in these compounds are usually positive and a good sign, emphasizing ideas such as beauty, strength, courage, victory, glory, and horseback riding. The order of elements is often reversible: aristos and kleos gives both Aristokles and Klearistos. Such compounds have less obvious meaning. But as Aristotle noted, two elements can be united in an illogical way. So a highly productive hippo horse produces, among hundreds of compounds, not just meanings like Philippos "horse lover" and Hippodamas "horsemen ", but also Xenippos " foreign horses "and Andrippos " human horses ". There are, in turn, many other names starting with Xen - and Andr - . This "irrational" compound arises through a combination of common elements. One motive is the tendency of the same family members to receive names that resonate with each other without being identical. So we meet Demippos, son of Demotimos, where his son's name is irrational ("man horse") and father's name means ("honor person", that is, respected among people).
Shorten the name
The second big name category is the shortened version ("hypocoristics," or in German Kosenamen ) of the compound name. So beside many names beginning with Kall - "beauty" like Kallinikos "fair triumph", some are shortened Kallias Kallon (masculine) or Kallis (feminine). Along with winnings such as Nikostratos "winning team", there are Nikias and Nikon (masculine) or Niko ). Such shortening is diverse and diverse: more than 250 abbreviations of names in Phil (l) - ("love") and related roots have been calculated.
Simple name
Common nouns and adjectives of the most diverse types are used as names, either unadjusted or with the addition of various suffixes. For example, about twenty different names are formed from ï a½ aischros "ugly", including from a poet we know as Aeschylus, Latin spelling Aischylos . Among the many categories of nouns and adjectives from which the most commonly derived names are colors ( Xanthos "yellow"), animals ( Moschos "heifer", and Doras "roe deer"), physical characteristics ( Simos "snub nose"), body parts ( Kephalos , from kephale " heads, "and many of the various slang terms for genitalia Some of these simple names are just like the most common plural names, but they are amazingly numerous and diverse Identifying their origins often weighs our knowledge of the outside of the Greek Vocabulary Here the search for self-esteem seen in plural names largely disappears.Some, in our ear, sounds offensively positively: Gastron "belly stomach", Batrachos "frog", Kopreus "sucks", but this may come from dear nicknames, in many cases applied to small children, and then brought in family nature.
Theophoric name ("god-carrying")
Very many Greeks have a name derived from the gods. Although it is not normal before the Roman period for the Greeks to bear the exact same name as the gods, the two most common Greek names (Dionysios and Demetrios feminine Dionysia and Demetria ) is a simple adjective formation of the divine name Dionysos and Demeter . There are also theophoric names, formed with various suffixes, the most common being -doros "gifts" (eg Dionysodoros "gift of Dionysos") or -doto "provided by" ( Apollodotos ). Many names are also based on the title of the cult deity: Pythodoros , from Pythios "Apollo". Also common are the names formed from simple gods of theos , such as Theodotos/Theodora .All the main deities except the god of war, Ares , and the deities associated with the underworld (Persephone, Hades, Plouton [= Ã, Latin Pluto ]) produce theophoric names, as do some of the lesser deities ( rivers in particular) and heroes.When the new gods rose to prominence ( Asklepios ) or entered Greece from outside ( Isis, Sarapis ), they also produced the theophoric names which formed in the usual way (eg Asklepiodotos, Isidoros, Sarapias ).
Lallnamen
This is a German word used for names that are not derived from other words but from the sounds made by young children speaking to their families. Usually, they involve recurrent consonants or syllables (such as English Dada, Nana ) - for example Nanna and Papas . They grow very often from a low base in the Roman period, perhaps through the influence of other naming traditions like Phrygian, where such names are very common.
A brief history of Greek naming
The main major characteristics of the formation of the Greek names listed above are found in other Indo-European languages ​​(Indo-Iranian, Germanic, Celtic, Baltic, and Slavic sub-groups); they look like ancient inheritance in Greek. The practice of naming Mycenaeans in the 14th/13th century BC, insofar as they can be reconstructed from the early Greek language known as Linear B, appears to have featured most of the characteristics of the system seen when literacy resumed in the 8th century BC, although non- Greece is also present. This is also true of Homer's epic poem, in which many heroes have the combined names of familiar types ( Alexandros, Alkinoos, Amphimakhos ). But the names of some of the greatest heroes (eg Achilleus, Odysseus, Agamemnon, Priamos ) can not be interpreted in those terms and are rarely borne by humans until a taste for the "heroic" name developed in under Rum; they have different origins and can not be explained. The system described above undergoes several changes before the Roman period, despite the rise of Macedonia to obtain such regional names as Ptolemaios, Berenike , and Arsinoe new popularity. The alternative name ("X also known as Y") began appearing in the document in the 2nd century BC but is sometimes mentioned in distant literary sources before it.
A different phenomenon, that individuals who have two names (eg, Hermogenes Theodotos), emerged among families with high social standing - particularly in Asia Minor in the Roman empire, perhaps under the influence naming Roman. pattern. The influence of Rome clearly looked good in the adoption of Roman names by the Greeks and in the transformation of drastic names by the Greeks who acquired Roman citizenship, a status characterized by possession of not one but three names. Such Greeks often took prenomenally and nomen from their authors or civic sponsors, but retained their Greek names as cognomen to give Titus such a form Flavius ​​â € <â € Another impulse came with the spread of Christianity, which brought new popularity to the names of the New Testament, the names of saints and martyrs, and the Greek names that existed like Theodosios "the gift of god", which can be reinterpreted in Christian terms. But non-Christian names, even theophoric names like Dionysios or Sarapion , continue to be borne by Christians - a reminder that theophoric names can be names like the others, meaning originally forgotten. Another phenomenon of ancient times (5th - 6th century) is a gradual shift from the use of father names in genitals as identifiers. The tendency arises not to show one's profession or status in the Christian church: carpenters, deacons, etc. Many Greek names have come down with various routes to modern English, some easily recognizable like Helen or Alexander, some altered like Denis (from Dionysios).
Suffix
Many Greek names use a special suffix that convey the additional meaning. Suffix -ide ( idas in the Doric region as Sparta) indicates patrilineal descent, e.g. Leonidas ("lion son"). Tiny suffixes -ion are also common, e.g. Hephaestion ("little Hephaestus").
Name as history
French Epigraphist Louis Robert states that what is required in the study of names is not "catalog names but history names and even history by name (l'histoire par les noms)." Names are ignored but in some areas important historical sources. Many names are typical of a particular city or region. It is rare to use a person's name to assign him to a particular place, because the factors that determine the choice of individual names vary greatly. But where there is a good group of names, it is usually possible to identify with much of the stability in which the group originated. In such a way, the origin of, say, bands of mercenaries or colonial groups mentioned in inscriptions without indication of their homeland can often be determined. The name is very important in cultural contact situations: they can answer the question of whether a particular city is Greek or non-Greek, and documenting shifts and complexities in ethnic self-identification even in individual families. They too, through theophoric names, provided important evidence for the diffusion of the new cult, and later Christianity.
Two other popular ways of exploiting names for social history, by contrast, are no longer favored. The names and classes of certain names are often borne by slaves, because their names are given or changed at will by the owners, who may not want to give them dignified names. But no name or very little is borne exclusively, and many slaves have names that can not be distinguished from the free ones; one can never identify a slave by name alone. A similar argument applies to so-called "prostitution names".
The study of Greek names
Jean Antoine Letronne (1851) is a pioneering work that emphasizes the importance of the subject. Pape and Benseler (1863-1870) have long been the center of reference work but have now been replaced. Bechtel (1917) is still the main work that seeks to explain the formation and meaning of Greek names, although the study of O. Masson et al. collected at Onomastica Graeca Selecta (1990-2000) continuously consulted.
L. Robert, noms indigÃÆ'¨nes dans l'Asie Mineure grÃÆ'Â © co-romaine (1963), is, despite its title, largely a successful attempt to show that many names are attested in Asia Minor and should have been a native of Greece; it is a fascinating demonstration of Greek naming sources.
The basic starting point now is the multi-volume A Lexicon of Greek Personal Names , founded by P.M. Fraser and still expanded with the collaboration of many scholars. It lists jobs, territories by region, not just every name is attested in the region but every carrier of that name (so the popularity of the name can be measured). A large number of Greek names proved in Egypt are accessible to Trismegistos People. Several volumes of research have been published that build on the new foundations made by this comprehensive collection: S. Hornblower and E. Matthews (2000); E. Matthews (2007); R. W. V. Catling and F. Marchand (2010); R. Parker (2013).
References
External links
- Greek Personal Lexicon, University of Oxford
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments