Greek Names

doi:10.1017/9781009291071.016

Chapter 14 - Greek Names

from Part II - Non-Babylonian Names

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2024

Paola Corò

Edited by

Caroline Waerzeggers and

Melanie M. Groß

Show author details

Caroline Waerzeggers: Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, The Netherlands
Melanie M. Groß: Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, The Netherlands

Book contents

Summary

Greek personal names are attested in the legal tablets from the city of Uruk, in the Astronomical Diaries, the Babylonian Chronicles, in royal inscriptions, and in documents from the cities of Babylon and Borsippa. After introducing the Greek language and its background, the chapter considers the types of Greek names attested in the cuneiform texts, the lexical items and theophoric elements used to form compounds, and the naming practices. Special attention is devoted to the rendering of Greek names with Babylonian script, especially because of the difficulties and constraints due to the use of a mixed logo-syllabic writing system to express onomastic items originally rendered in an alphabetic script and due to the differences between the Babylonian and Greek phonetic systems. The diffusion of Greek names in Babylonian is linked to the more general matter of the contacts between the Greek world and Mesopotamia, and to the debate on the significance of the Greek presence in Babylonia in the first millennium BCE; the chapter thus concludes – taking into consideration Greek royal names, Greek female names, and double (Greek and Babylonian) names in the sources – with a discussion of the social dimension of the use of Greek names in Babylonian society.

Keywords

Greek personal names double names Greek lexical items Greek theophoric names compound names Babylonian spelling of Greek Hellenistic period

Type: Chapter
Information: Personal Names in Cuneiform Texts from Babylonia (c. 750–100 BCE)
An Introduction
, pp. 224 - 237

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009291071.016 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2024
Creative Commons: This content is Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/cclicenses/

Introduction to the Language and Its Background

The Greek language belongs to the Indo-European linguistic family. It is attested from the second half of the second millennium BCE to the present day. Conventionally, it is divided into three main phases: the ancient period, from the first attestations to the end of the Roman Empire; the Byzantine period, from the end of the Roman Empire to the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 CE; and the modern period, from 1453 CE to date. For our purposes only the ancient phase will be taken into consideration.

The earliest attested dialect is Mycenean Greek, written on clay tablets using a syllabary known as ‘Linear B’, adapted from the syllabary (Linear A) used to express the language of Minoan Crete, which is still undeciphered. With the collapse of the Mycenean civilisation (c. 1200 BCE), the Linear B script disappeared during the so-called Greek ‘Dark Age’, from which writing was not preserved. Writing was re-introduced between the end of the ninth and the beginning of the eighth centuries BCE, now using an alphabetic system derived from the Phoenician alphabet.

The new alphabetic writing was used until the Hellenistic period on a number of different writing materials (wood, marble, bronze, and lead, as well as clay, ostraca, wooden boards, parchment, and papyrus scrolls) to express different dialects of the Greek language (Ionic and Attic, Arcado–Cypriot, Pamphylian, Macedonian, the Doric group of dialects, the Aeolic group, and literary dialects; e.g., that of Homeric poetry). Following the conquests of Alexander the Great, a new supra-regional dialect – the koiné – evolved from Attic as the lingua franca of the empire. The ancient phase of the Greek language is conventionally said to end in the year 394 CE, at the time of the division of the Roman Empire.

All along its mature phase, the Greek alphabet includes twenty-four discrete letters. The Greek language is inflectional, like Akkadian, and includes five cases: the nominative (for the subject), the genitive (for the possessive relationship), the dative (for the indirect object, plus other syntactic functions; e.g., instrument and cause), the accusative (for the direct object), and the vocative (for addressing people). Greek personal names are usually transliterated into Babylonian in the nominative. Although Greek names are in general rendered into Babylonian with their own Greek nominative endings, Babylonian nominative case endings may sometimes replace the equivalent (masculine or feminine) Greek ones.

The Name Material in the Babylonian Sources

The Corpus

The appearance of Greek names in the onomastic corpus from Babylonia is directly connected to the more general matter of Greek presence in Mesopotamia, which is treated in more detail in ‘Socio-Onomastics’. Suffice it to note here that with the Hellenistic period the number of Greek names attested in Babylonian sources noticeably increases, reaching a total of about 130 distinct entries. The largest portion of Greek names occurs in the legal tablets from the southern Mesopotamian city of Uruk dated to the Hellenistic period,Footnote ¹ but Greek names are also recorded in the Astronomical Diaries, the Babylonian chronicles, and some royal inscriptions, as well as in legal and administrative documents from the cities of Babylon and Borsippa.Footnote ²

The corpus includes both male and female names, the second group consisting of about ten names only. This comes as no surprise as male individuals are in general much more frequently represented in the Babylonian sources than women (see ‘Female Names’).

Types

Following Ina J. Hartmann’s classification, Greek names may be divided into monothematic and dithematic names.Footnote ³ Monothematic names are non-compound names, consisting of one grammatical element such as an adjective, a verb, a substantive, or a proper noun (with or without the addition of a suffix): this is the case with personal names such as Κεϕάλων (Kephalōn, with suffix; from κεφαλή ‘head’). Dithematic names are compounds, usually made up of two complete and recognisable lexical elements, such as adjectives, verbs, substantives, and proper nouns: a typical example is the name Τιμοκράτης (Timokratēs; from τιμάω ‘to honour’ + κράτος ‘strength’).

The corpus of Greek names in cuneiform likewise consists of both non-compound/simplex and compound names. Theophoric elements are frequently used in the formation of names, both non-compound/simplex, for example, the name of the god Apollo in Ἀπολλωνίδης (Apōllonidēs) or Ἀπολλώνιος (Apollōnios), and compound, as in the case of the divine name Artemis in Ἀρτεμίδωρος (Artemidōros). Theophoric elements used in the representation of Greek names in the cuneiform corpus include the names of the gods Athena (e.g., Ἀθηνόδωρος, Athēnodōros), Zeus (e.g., Διοφάνης, Diophanēs; Διόφαντος, Diophantos), Herakles (e.g., Ἡρακλείδης, Herakleidēs), and Poseidon (e.g., Ποσειδώνιος, Poseidōnios). A full list is presented in Table 14.1.Footnote ⁴

Table 14.1 Greek theophoric names

God name	Non-compound names	Compound names
Apollo	Apōllonidēs (2); Apollōnios (5)	Apollodōros (1)
Artemis	–	Artemidōros (3)
Athena	–	Athēnodōros (1); Athēnophilos (1)
Demetra	Demetrios (3)Footnote ⁵
Dionysus	Dionysia (1)
Helios	–	Heliodōros (1)
Hephaestus	Hephaistiōn (1)
Herakles	Herakleidēs (4)	–
Heros		Herotheos (1)
Isis		Isidōros (2); Isitheos (1)
Poseidon	Poseidōnios (2)
Zeus	–	Diophanēs (2); Diophantos (7)

Lexical items such as ‘strength’ (κράτος, kratos), ‘gift’ (δῶρον, dōron), ‘to rule’ (ἄρχω, archō), ‘renown’ (κλέος, kleos), ‘horse’ (ἵππος, hippos), ‘head’ (κεφαλή, kephalē), ‘man’ (ἀνήρ, anēr), ‘victory’ (νίκη, nikē), ‘army’ (στρατός, stratos),Footnote ⁶ ‘god’ (θεός, theos), and ‘to honour’ (τιμάω, timaō), ‘friend’ (φίλος, philos), ‘lineage’ (γένος, genos), ‘father’ (πατήρ, patēr), and ‘better’ (ἄριστος, aristos) are productive in the corpus in the formation of names, especially (but not exclusively) compound ones, as can be seen in Table 14.2.Footnote ⁷

Table 14.2 Greek names according to lexical items

anēr	Alexandros (5); Menandros (1); Sōsandros (1)
archō	Archelaos (1); Archias (1)
aristos	Aristeus (1); Aristoklēs (1); Aristokratēs (2); Aristōn (3)
dōron	Artemidōros (3); Athenodōros (1); Diodōros (2); Heliodōros (1); Isidōros (2); Menodōros; Theodōros (2)
genos	Antigenēs; Diogenēs (2)
hippos	Alexippos (1); Hipponikos; Philippos (1)
kephalē	Kephalōn (9)
kleos	Agathoklēs (1); Dioklēs (1); Patroklēs (1)
kratos	Aristokratēs (2); Dēmokratēs (5); Timokratēs (5)
nikē	Andronikos (2); Nikanōr (12); Nikarchos (1); Nikēratos (1); Nikolaos (3)
patēr	Antipatros (3)
philos	Athenophilos (1); Menophilos (1); Philinos (1); Philippos (1); Philos (1); Zenophilos (1)
stratos	Stratōn (5)
theos	Herotheos (2); Isitheos (1); Theoboulos (1); Theodōros (2); Theodosios (1); Theogenēs (1); Theomelēs (2); Timotheos (2)
timaō	Timokratēs (5); Timotheos (2)

Also common in the corpus are royal names, of both Argead and Seleucid rulers (as, e.g., Seleucos, Antiochos, Demetrios etc.):Footnote ⁸ there is one case where a royal name is used in the feminine, in the female name Antiochis. No restrictions apply to the use of royal names in the onomastics of ordinary people, a situation which differs from what we know from Mesopotamia in other periods (see Chapter 1, and section ‘Royal Names’ in this chapter).

Naming Practices

In Greek sources, individuals are identified by a personal name and the patronym (i.e., the father’s name), which can either be expressed in the genitive or as an adjective (usually ending in -ιδης). The use of the patronym is crucial for identification. The demotic (i.e., the name of the dēmos the individual belongs to) and/or the ethnicon are commonly added to the patronym when the individual is referred to in documents stemming from a place other than the one from which he originates.Footnote ⁹

In the Hellenistic sources from Uruk, which make up the bulk of the material under consideration here, Greek names transliterated into Babylonian may occur as single names or as part of a full onomastic chain. Kings are usually identified by their first name only (see ‘Royal Names’ section of this chapter). Conversely, ordinary individuals are seldomly identified by their first name only. This may happen in exceptional circumstances, such as the identification of the neighbours in a property description or in the captions of seal impressions (but in this last case, full names are commonly preserved in the witness list of the same document).

Commonly, a complete onomastic chain is recorded. The following options are possible:

a. Greek name/Greek patronym/(Greek grandfather’s name)
b. Greek name/Greek patronym/(Babylonian grandfather’s name)/Babylonian family name
c. Greek name/Babylonian patronym/(Babylonian grandfather’s name)/Babylonian family name
d. Greek name/Babylonian patronym/Babylonian grandfather’s name/(Babylonian great-grandfather’s name).

It is generally believed that type a. identifies individuals who are ‘ethnically’ Greek. It is, however, difficult to ascertain the ethnic identity of the individuals with Greek names, as the sources only specify it in two cases: Poseidōnios, son of Metrodōros (or Myrtolos?), is labelled ‘the Greek’ (in YOS 20 70:8´), while Diophanēs, son of Stratōn, grandson of Kidin-Anu, is called ‘the Urukean’ (in BRM 2 55:15–16).Footnote ¹⁰

Acculturation is frequently invoked as the reason for the choice of a Greek name within traditional Babylonian families. Reference Langin-Hooper and PearceStephanie M. Langin-Hooper and Laurie E. Pearce (2014) recently demonstrated that, at least in some cases, the attribution of a Greek name to the offspring of Babylonian families may result from maternal-line papponymy naming practices; that is, a mother would preserve her own family’s cultural heritage by naming one of her sons after his maternal grandfather (who, in this case, bore a Greek name).

Spelling and Normalisation

Rendering Greek names with the Babylonian script was not an easy task. Babylonian scribes were confronted with two interconnected challenges: first, rendering a name whose spelling was designed for an alphabetic script by means of a mixed logo-syllabic system; second, adapting phonemes specific to the Greek language to the Babylonian phonetic system – for example, the vowel o, which does not exist in Babylonian, was usually replaced by u. Moreover, in the koiné, some of the phonemes of the Greek language (e.g., the diphthongs) were no longer pronounced as they were written.Footnote ¹¹

According to Julien Monerie,Footnote ¹² when writing Greek names with the Babylonian script, the scribes, who always rendered them syllabically, more frequently resorted to the names’ pronunciation rather than faithfully transcribing their standard written form. Furthermore, the more a name came into use, the more the scribes became familiar with it and tended to harmonise its spelling, also adapting it to Babylonian. These processes and the constraints, inherent to the differences between the two systems, explain why various spellings often occur for one and the same name.

It is thus difficult, if not impossible, to establish a full and mechanical set of conversion rules for Greek names into the Babylonian writing system. The most comprehensive and recent attempt in this regard is that by Julien Reference MonerieMonerie (2014), to which the reader is referred for details. Suffice it here to lay out the most important correspondences generally applied to the reconstruction (see Table 14.3).

Table 14.3 Conversion rules for Greek names into the Babylonian writing systemFootnote ¹³

Babylonian	Greek	Babylonian	Greek
a/–/(e in Neo- Assyrian)/ia	α	–/intervocalic m=w	Ϝ (digamma)
b	β	u but also a/i	ο
g	γ	p	π
d	δ	r/(l)	ρ
e/i	ε	s/(š in Neo- Assyrian)	σ, ς (in final position)
z	ζ	ṭ	τ
a-e/e-e/i-e/e-ˀe/e-ˀa-a	η	i/–	υ
t	θ	p	φ
i/ˀi-i	ι	k	χ
q	κ	pV-sV(?)	ψ
l	λ	u but also a/i	ω
m	μ	v₁C₁C₂/C₁vC₂-	C₁C₂-
n/–(before dentals)/assimilated to following	ν	v₁C₁C3/v₁C₁v₂C₂/v₁C₁C₂v₂C₃	C₁C₂C₃
v₁ k-v₁s	ξ	ḫ/–	^̔ (rough breathing)

In order to identify Greek names in Babylonian writing, it also proves useful to list their most typical endings or second elements (see Table 14.4).

Table 14.4 Typical endings and second elements of Greek names in Babylonian writing

Babylonian rendering of name ending	Equivalent in transcription	Equivalent in Greek
Cu-su	-C-οs	-C-ος
V-su	-Vs	-V-ς
Cu-ú-ru	-C-or	C-ωρ
Cu-ú-nu/Cu-nu/Ci-nu	-Con	C-ων
an-dar/an-da-ri/an-dar-ri-is/and-dar-su/an-der/a-dar	-andros	-ανδρος
ar-ku-su/ar-qu-ra-su/ar-qu-su/ar-qu-ú-su/(C)ar-su	-archos	-αρχος
e-du-su	-ades	-αδης
du-ru-us/du-ur-su/du-ur/du-ru/ˀu-du-ru(?)	-doros	-δωρος
ig-nu-us/ig-nu-su/ig-nu-us-su/ig-is-su	-V-gonos	-V-γονος
gi-ra-te/gu-ra-te/uq-ra-te	-krates	-κρατης
uq-la-e/uq-ra-la-e	-V-kles	-V-κλης
ni-qé-e/ni-qé	-nikes	-νικης
pa-lu-su/pa-lu-ú-[su?]	-philos	-φιλος
Ci-de-e/Ci-di-e	-Cides/-Ceides	-ιδης/ειδης
pa-tu-su	-phantos	-φαντος
i-si/ip-su/lìp-su/pi-is-su/pi-li-su/pi-su/pi-is/lìp-i-si/lip-pu-us/lip-is/lìp-us/lip-su/li-pi-su	-(l)ippos	-ιππος
Ci-ia/Ci-su/Ci-e-su/Ci-si	-Cios	-C-ιος

Socio-Onomastics

As we have observed, the diffusion of Greek names in Babylonian is linked to the more general matter of the contacts between the Greek world and Mesopotamia, and the debate on the significance of the Greek presence in Babylonia in the first millennium BCE. While early contacts are already attested in the sources at the time of the Assyrian expansion to the west in the eighth century BCE, it is with the annexation of Babylonia by Cyrus in 539 BCE, and especially following Alexander III’s conquest, that the Greek presence in the region becomes more than intermittent.Footnote ¹⁴

Greek individuals (kings, officials, and ordinary men) as well as Babylonians bearing a Greek name begin to appear in the sources. The corpus consists primarily of masculine names; among them are royal names, used to identify the ruling kings and as part of the common onomastic repertoire. A very small percentage of the Greek onomasticon is represented by feminine names. It is in the Hellenistic period that an official of the city of Uruk is known to have received another, Greek name next to his Babylonian one, directly from the king. More and more Greek names are incorporated in the corpus of personal names in Uruk alongside traditional Babylonian ones, identifying both individuals of likely Greek origin and Babylonians.Footnote ¹⁵

Royal Names

Kings are usually referred to by their first name, with no onomastic chain following. Their names typically (though not exclusively) occur in the date formulas of the documents and in the payment sections of the contracts to specify the currency used to pay the price of the commodity that is the object of a transaction. Thus, for example, according to STUBM 45-RE Lâbâši, son of Anu-zēru-iddin, from the Ekur-zakir family, buys a house and an unbuilt plot located in the Šamaš Gate district in Uruk. The document is dated to the early regnal years of Seleucos II and the formula reads ‘Uruk. Ṭebēt, (day broken), year 69, Seleucos (^Ise-lu-ku), the king’. Lâbâši pays a total price of 8 shekels of silver in good-quality staters of Antiochos (is-ta-tir-ri.MEŠ šá ^Ian-ti-’i-ku-su bab-ba-nu-ú-tú) for the property. Although the document is issued in the reign of Seleucos II, the currency used is still that of his predecessor, Antiochos II.

Partial exception to the use of the first name for kings is represented by date formulas indicating co-regencies, where the parental relationship between the reigning kings may be mentioned. An example is provided by STUBM 74-RE which, according to its date formula, was issued in year 109 ‘of Antiochos and Antiochos, his son, the kings’ (^Ian-ti-’i-ku-su u ^Ian-ti-’i-ku-su DUMU-šu LUGAL.MEŠ).

Abbreviations for the king names are sometimes used, especially in the Astronomical Diaries. A list of abbreviated royal names is presented in Table 14.5.

Table 14.5 Abbreviations of Greek royal names

Akkadian rendering	Reading	Full name
^Ia-lek-saFootnote ¹⁶	Alexa	Alexandros
^Ian; ^Ian-ti	An; Anti	Antiochos
^Ide	De	Demetrios
^Ipi	Pi	Philippos
^Ise	Se	Seleucos

No restriction apparently applied to the use of Greek royal names for ordinary people in the Hellenistic period. A large number of individuals in the corpus exhibit names such as Alexandros (^Ia-lek, ^Ia-lek-si-an-dar, and ^Ia-lek-sa-an-dar), Antiochos (^Ian-ti-ˀi-i-ku-su, ^Ian-ti-i-ku-su, ^Ian-ti-ˀu-ku-su, and ^Ian-ti-ˀu-uk-su), Demetrios (^Ide-e-meṭ-ri-su, ^Ide-meṭ-ri, and maybe also ^Idi-i-meṭ-ri:ti-ia), Philippos (^Ipi-il-pi-li-su and ^Ipi-il-pi-su), and Seleucos (^Ise-lu, ^Ise-lu-ku, and ^Ise-lu-uk-ku).Footnote ¹⁷

Female Names

Only a few Greek female names occur in the corpus, three of which identify queens and four of which identify ordinary women.Footnote ¹⁸ Queen names include Laodice ‘People’s justice’ (Λαοδίκη, spelled ^Ilam-ú-di-qé-ˀa-a, ^Ilu-da-qé, ^Ilu-di-qé-e, and ^fla-ú-di-qé-e),Footnote ¹⁹ identifying the two Seleucid queens married to Antiochos II and Antiochos III, respectively; Stratonice ‘Army’s victory’, the wife of Seleucos I and Antiochos I (Στρατονίκη, spelled ^Ias-ta-ar-ta-ni-iq-qú, ^Ias-ta-rat-ni-qé, and ^Ias-ta-rat-ni-qé-e); and Thalassia ‘From the sea’ (Θαλασσία spelled ^Ita-la-si-ˀa-a-ṣu-u), the wife of Hyspaosines of Charax.

Among ordinary women mentioned in the corpus from Hellenistic Uruk, both Antiochis ‘Against support’ (Ἀντιοχίς spelled ^fan-ti-ˀi-i-ki-su), the daughter of Diophantos, and Dionysia (mng. unknown) (Διονύσια spelled ^fdi-ni-ˀi-i-si-ˀa), the daughter of Herakleidēs, are likely of Greek origins and married into Babylonian families. The name Antiochis confirms the diffusion of royal names among common people, including women, and Dionysia preserves a clear theophoric name. Phanaia ‘One who brings light’ (Φάναια spelled ^fpa-na-a) is a slave who probably got her Greek name from her mistress, a certain ^fŠamê-ramât, also known with the Greek name Kratō ‘Strength’ (Κρατώ spelled ^fka-ra-ṭu-ú), the daughter of a certain Artemidōros. It is uncertain whether ^fŠamê-ramât alias Kratō stemmed from a Greek family;Footnote ²⁰ however, she probably married a Greek man whose name is tentatively reconstructed as Tatedidos (mng. uncertain).

Double Names

Greek names may also occur in combination with a Babylonian name to identify an individual bearing two names. The typical Babylonian formula is ‘PN₁ whose other name is PN₂’. Only about twenty double Greek/Babylonian names occur in the corpus. The use of polyonomy is not limited to Greek/Babylonian names; it also appears in names that pair Babylonian/Babylonian and Babylonian/other languages. The order of the two names is apparently irrelevant, and in many instances only one of the two was used in the documents.Footnote ²¹ In the well-known case of the high official Anu-uballiṭ alias Nikarchos, his Greek name was apparently entrusted to him by the king, but one cannot generalise from it and the rationale behind this practice still escapes our full understanding.Footnote ²²

Footnotes

¹ The estimation is based on Reference MonerieMonerie (2014); single name entries are considered here, irrespective of the number of different individuals who may have borne the same name, and of the attested spellings for each of them.

² For a complete listing the reader is referred to the entries of each personal name in Reference MonerieMonerie (2014); see also the index of sources in the same volume, pp. 213–21. For the Astronomical Diaries, see Reference Sachs and HungerSachs and Hunger (1988, Reference Sachs and Hunger1989, and Reference Sachs and Hunger1996) as well as Van der Spek, Finkel, Pirngruber and Stevens (forthcoming) (incl. the chronicles). Royal inscriptions referring to Greek personal names are the Antiochos Cylinder (VR 66), the Nikarchos Cylinder (YOS 1 52), and the stamped brick of Anu-uballiṭ/Kephalon (WVDOG 51, pl. 58).

³ We follow here the simplest classification of Greek names into two main groups, as suggested by Reference HartmannHartmann (2002). One should, however, note that according to Hartmann, Greek non-compound names can be further sub-divided into monothematic names with or without suffixes. Furthermore, compound names are dithematic names falling into three different sub-groups: full dithematic (two elements fully recognisable), extended dithematic (two elements + suffix), and abbreviated dithematic (two elements, one of which shortened). Such a refined distinction is, however, not productive for the purposes of the present analysis.

⁴ In Tables 14.1 and 14.2, digits between round brackets refer to the number of discrete individuals bearing the name, as recorded in Reference MonerieMonerie (2014).

⁵ Royal names are excluded here.

⁶ According to Julien Monerie the popularity of the name Στράτων (Stratōn) in Uruk at the end of the third century BCE might be due to a phenomenon of assonance with the common divine name Ištar, assimilated to Astarte. See Reference MonerieMonerie (2014, 76–7) and Reference Del MonteDel Monte (1997, 41–2), both with bibliography.

⁷ The table only covers compound names built with the elements listed here and does not pretend to include all names attested in the corpus and their components. Occurrences referring to royal names are excluded from the total considered here.

⁸ Representing approximately 10 per cent of the individuals with a Greek name according to Reference MonerieMonerie 2014, 75.

⁹ Thompson 2001, 678–9.

¹⁰ The name of the son of Poseidōnios is interpreted as Metrodōros (reading the name as ^Ime-te-du-ur-su) in YOS 20; it is tentatively read Myrtolos (i.e., ^Ime-èr-ṭù-lu-su) by Reference MonerieMonerie (2014, 152, s.v).

¹¹ See Reference HorrocksHorrocks (2010, esp. chp 4), and also Reference Monerie, Rollinger and van DongenMonerie (2015, 350–4).

¹² Reference Monerie, Rollinger and van DongenMonerie 2015, 350.

¹³ In Tables 14.3 and 14.4, ‘C’ stands for any consonant and ‘v’ for any vowel.

¹⁴ On these topics, see, for example, Reference Rollinger and WhitingRollinger (2001) as well as Reference MonerieMonerie (2012 and Reference Monerie2014), with earlier bibliography.

¹⁵ On double names in Hellenistic Uruk, see Reference BowmanBowman (1939), Reference Doty, Leichty, deJ. Ellis and GerardiDoty (1988), and Reference Boiy, van Soldt and KatzBoiy (2005), with bibliography. Recently also Reference Pearce and CoròPearce and Corò (2023).

¹⁶ Note also the exceptional use of KI.MIN (= ‘ditto’), preceded by the determinative for masculine personal names, as patronym for the king Alexander mentioned in the date formula of OECT 9 75:6´ from Kish. I thank Laurie Pearce for drawing my attention to this case.

¹⁷ Only the spellings of royal names used to identify ordinary people are recorded here. For a complete list of spellings of each royal name, see Reference MonerieMonerie, (2014 s.vv). See also the website HBTIN, s.vv: http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/hbtin/index.html.

¹⁸ On women in the sources from Hellenistic Uruk, see Reference CoròCorò (2014; Reference Corò, Droß-Krüpe and FinkCorò 2021), with earlier bibliography.

¹⁹ On the spellings of the name of Laodice, see Reference CoròCorò (2020).

²⁰ According to Reference Oelsner, Charpin and JoannèsOelsner (1992, 343) she was Greek; for a different hypothesis, see Reference MonerieMonerie (2014, 73–4).

²¹ We have no clear idea of what is the rationale behind the use of one or the other; see Reference Boiy, van Soldt and KatzBoiy (2005). See also Reference Sherwin-WhiteSherwin-White (1983) and, recently, Reference MonerieMonerie (2014). On the use of his Greek name by Nikolaos alias Riḫat-Anu, see Reference Pearce and CoròPearce and Corò (2023).

²² The inscription in question is the so-called Nikarchos Cylinder (YOS 1 52). According to Reference Langin-Hooper and PearceLangin-Hooper and Pearce (2014, 195–9) it is possible that double names were used at least in some cases to preserve both the maternal and paternal onomastic heritage.

References

As an introduction to the history of the Greek language and its dialects, the main reference is the book by Geoffrey Horrocks (2010). A classical reference for Greek grammar is by Herbert W. Smyth (1956). The most recent grammar of the Greek language in English, offering a new linguistically oriented approach, is by Evert van Emde Boas, Albert Rijksbaron, Luuk Huitink, and Mathieu de Bakker (2019). The Lexicon of Greek Personal Names (LGPN) is an essential tool for Greek names, listing the attestations of names, showing their geographical distribution, and providing the total of attestations. It features an online version (www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk) and a paper version (both still incomplete as for their geographical coverage since it is an ongoing project). It is a very useful tool for our purposes, as it offers the possibility to check the original spellings of Greek names and to look for names that might not be recorded in Julian Monerie’s prosopographic dictionary. The reader is referred to the publications page of the LGPN website for details on the published volumes.

The first systematic study of Greek names attested in Babylonian sources is by Wolfgang Röllig (1960). The most recent and important reference book for Greek names in Babylonian sources is the prosopographic dictionary compiled by Julien Monerie (2014), where all Greek personal names occurring in Babylonian sources are recorded. Two reviews to this volume are published so far: one by Zsolt Simon (2017), the other by Reinhard Pirngruber (2015). Also useful is the synthesis in English by Julien Monerie (2015) on the principles governing the transcription of Greek in cuneiform. Another useful tool is the name glossary on the website HBTIN ‘Hellenistic Babylonia: Text, Images, and Names’ (http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/hbtin/index.html) directed by Laurie Pearce. Here, the occurrences of Greek personal names attested in the corpus of texts from Hellenistic Babylonia are recorded alongside the Babylonian ones.

Other literature one might also want to consult includes:

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