Read more
List of contents
- 1: Robert Parker: Introduction
- 2: Torsten Mei^andbeta^ner: Greek or Minoan? Names and Naming Habits in the Aegean Bronze Age
- 3: Miltiades Hatzopoulos: A Tale of Two Cities in Macedonia: Aigeai and Pella
- 4: Denis Knoepfler: The Four Seasons of Boeotian, and Particularly Thespian, Onomastics
- 5: Jaime Curbera: An Essay on Satyr Names
- 6: Thomas Corsten: Name Changes of Individuals
- 7: Stephen Lambert: Democrates the Democrat?
- 8: Dan Dana: Onomastic Interactions: Greek and Thracian Names
- 9: Christof Schuler: Lycian, Persian, Greek, Roman: Chronological Layers and Structural Developments in the Onomastics of Lycia
- 10: Jean-Sebastien Balzat: The Diffusion of Roman Names and Naming Practices in Greek Poleis (2nd c. BC - 3rd c. AD)
- 11: Athanasios Rizakis: New Identities in the Greco-Roman East: Cultural and Legal Implications of the Use of Roman Names
- 12: Sylvain Destephen: Christianisation and Local Names: Fall and Rise in Late Antiquity
- Index
About the author
Robert Parker was Fellow and Tutor in Greek and Latin Languages and Literature at Oriel College, Oxford from 1976 to 1996, and from 1996 to 2016 Wykeham Professor of Ancient History and Fellow of New College, Oxford. He is Director of the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names project.
Summary
Changing Names investigates, in relation to the ancient Greek world, the ways in which preferences in personal name-giving change: through shifts in population, cultural contact and imperialism, the popularity of new gods, celebrity status of individuals, increased openness to external influence, and shifts in local fashion.
Several major kinds of change due to cultural contact occurred: Greek names spread in regions outside Greece that were subject to Greek cultural influence (and later conquest), while conversely the Roman conquest of the Greek world led to various degrees of adoption of the Roman naming system; late in antiquity, Christianisation led to a profound but rather gradual transformation of the name stock. Individuals in culturally mixed societies sometimes bore two names, one for public or official use, one more domestic; but women of non-Greek origin were more likely to stick with indigenous names. 'Structural' changes (such as the emergence of the English surname) did not occur, though in late antiquity an indication of profession tended to replace the father's name as a secondary identifier; in some regions 'second' names became popular, perhaps in imitation of the longer Roman naming formulae. The volume is arranged partly thematically, partly through regional case studies (from within and beyond old Greece). Individuals who change their names (typically slaves after manumission) are also considered, as is the possibility that a name might change its 'meaning'.
