Personal Names in Ancient Anatolia

by: Parker, R.

Proceedings of the British Academy
A very strong international list of contributors, from the UK, Europe, USA and Canada
Based on newly available data from the expansion of The Lexicon of Greek Personal Names into Anatolia
Includes a history of the field

Ancient Anatolia was a region where many indigenous or at least long-established peoples mingled with many conquerors or incomers: Persians, Greeks, Gauls, Romans, Jews. Its rich and complex history of cultural interaction is only spasmodically illuminated by literary sources. Inscriptions, by contrast, abound and attest well over 100,000 name-bearing inhabitants. Many of those names retain regional associations, and when analysed with tact allow lost histories and micro-histories to be recovered.

This volume exploits the huge possibilities for social and linguistic history being created by the expansion of The Lexicon of Greek Personal Names into Anatolia. One topic is that of continuities and discontinuities between the naming practices of the Hittites and Luvians in the second millennium BC and those of the Greco-Roman period. Several studies trace changing patterns of naming in particular regions; this may reflect real changes in population, but the need for sociological sensitivity is stressed, as the change may lie rather in changing self-perceptions or preferred self-identifications.

The Anatolian treasure house of names can also be used to illuminate the psychology of naming, the rise of nursery nicknames to the status of proper names (and their subsequent fall from favour), for instance, or the fascination with exotic luxury items expressed in names such as Amethyst or Emerald, or the fashion for 'second names' among the Greek-speaking elite. The volume shows how, as has been said, the study of names is a 'paradigm case of the convergence of disciplines, where the history of language meets social history'.

Table of Contents
1: Introduction, Robert Parker
2: Anatolian Onomastics after Louis Robert . . . and Some Others, Claudia Brixhe
3: Naming Practices in 2nd and 1st Millennium Western Anatolia, Craig Melchert
4: Indigenous Names in Heraclea Pontica, Alexandru Avram
5: Names, Ethnicity and Acculturation in the Pamphylian/Lycian Borderland, Mustafa Adak
6: Histoire par les noms in Ancient Galatia, Altay Coskun
7: Simple Names of Ionians, Jaime Curbera
8: From Aphrodisias to Alexandria with Agroitas and Agreophon, Riet van Bremen
9: Imperial Asia Minor: Economic Prosperity and Names, Christian Marek
10: Resources for Naming - Problematic Names of Asia Minor, Jaime Curbera
11: Second Thoughts on Second Names at Aphrodisias, Angelos Chaniotis

Personal Names in Ancient Anatolia

by: Parker, R.

• ISBN-13: 9780197265635 / 978-0-19-726563-5
• ISBN-03: 0197265634 / 0-19-726563-4
• Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013