Ancient Egyptian Language and Names | Middle East And North Africa

Home | Category: Language and Hieroglyphics

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LANGUAGE

Hieroglyphics
Even though scholars can read ancient Egyptian and they know that the Egyptian hieroglyphics are phonetic they are not exactly sure what the language sounded like. The ancient Egyptian language continued to be spoken until the Middle Ages. It remnants can be found in the liturgy of the Egyptian Coptic Church.

The Coptic language, the liturgical language of the Coptic church, probably became extinct in the 16th century. It had its own script and is regarded as the closest language to that of the Egyptian pharaohs. The Copts claimed descent from the ancient Egyptians; the word copt is derived from the Arabic word qubt (Egyptian). Egypt was Christianized during the first century A.D., when the country was part of the Roman Empire.

One pharaoh told his son in 2080 B.C.: "Be a craftsman in speech, [so that] though mayest be strong...the tongue is a sword...and is more valorous than any fighting." According to phoenicia.org: The ancient Egyptians attributed language to Taautos who was the father of tautology or imitation. Tradition says he invented the first written characters and came from Byblos, Phoenicia, the home of the one of the first alphabet. Taautos played his flute to the chief deity of Byblos who was a moon-goddess Ba'alat Nikkal. Taautos was called Thoth by the Greeks. The Egyptians called him Djehuti. Taautos — as well as Thoth and Dionysus — appear to have originated from Njörth, the snake priest who was, at times, was the consort to the moon-goddess. The snake priest was represented by the symbol of a pillar, a wand or a caduceus, which over time became the god Hermes or Mercury. The Greeks equated Thoth with the widely-traveled Hermes. [Source: phoenicia.org]

Websites on Ancient Egypt: UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, escholarship.org ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Egypt sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Discovering Egypt discoveringegypt.com; BBC History: Egyptians bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians ; Ancient History Encyclopedia on Egypt ancient.eu/egypt; Digital Egypt for Universities. Scholarly treatment with broad coverage and cross references (internal and external). Artifacts used extensively to illustrate topics. ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt ; British Museum: Ancient Egypt ancientegypt.co.uk; Egypt’s Golden Empire pbs.org/empires/egypt; Metropolitan Museum of Art www.metmuseum.org ; Oriental Institute Ancient Egypt (Egypt and Sudan) Projects ; Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre in Paris louvre.fr/en/departments/egyptian-antiquities; KMT: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt kmtjournal.com; Ancient Egypt Magazine ancientegyptmagazine.co.uk; Egypt Exploration Society ees.ac.uk ; Amarna Project amarnaproject.com; Egyptian Study Society, Denver egyptianstudysociety.com; The Ancient Egypt Site ancient-egypt.org; Abzu: Guide to Resources for the Study of the Ancient Near East etana.org; Egyptology Resources fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk

Herodotus on Psammetichus’s Experiment on Language and Children

Herodotus wrote in Book 2 of “Histories”: “Now before Psammetichus became king of Egypt,the Egyptians believed that they were the oldest people on earth. But ever since Psammetichus became king and wished to find out which people were the oldest, they have believed that the Phrygians were older than they, and they than everybody else. Psammetichus, when he was in no way able to learn by inquiry which people had first come into being, devised a plan by which he took two newborn children of the common people and gave them to a shepherd to bring up among his flocks. He gave instructions that no one was to speak a word in their hearing; they were to stay by themselves in a lonely hut, and in due time the shepherd was to bring goats and give the children their milk and do everything else necessary. [Source: Herodotus, “The Histories”, Egypt after the Persian Invasion, Book 2, English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920, Tufts]

“Psammetichus did this, and gave these instructions, because he wanted to hear what speech would first come from the children, when they were past the age of indistinct babbling. And he had his wish; for one day, when the shepherd had done as he was told for two years, both children ran to him stretching out their hands and calling “Bekos!” as he opened the door and entered. When he first heard this, he kept quiet about it; but when, coming often and paying careful attention, he kept hearing this same word, he told his master at last and brought the children into the king's presence as required. Psammetichus then heard them himself, and asked to what language the word “Bekos” belonged; he found it to be a Phrygian word, signifying bread. Reasoning from this, the Egyptians acknowledged that the Phrygians were older than they. This is the story which I heard from the priests of Hephaestus'2 temple at Memphis; the Greeks say among many foolish things that Psammetichus had the children reared by women whose tongues he had cut out. 3.

Old Egyptian Language

James Allen of Brown University wrote: “Old Egyptian is the earliest stage of the ancient Egyptian language that is preserved in extensive texts. It represents a dialect as well as a historical stage of the language, showing grammatical similarities with and distinctions from later ones. One particular issue in studying Old Egyptian lies in the uneven nature of the Old Kingdom written record, which mostly consists of texts relating to the funerary domain. [Source: James Allen, Brown University, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2015, escholarship.org ]

“Old Egyptian is the name given to the stage of the ancient Egyptian language that is preserved in texts of the Old Kingdom. It is normally considered to begin with the inscriptions from the tomb of Metjen (early Dynasty 4, ca. 2575 B.C.), historically the first to contain more than the few words or phrases that are found in earlier sources. Its latest manifestations are in the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom— although the composition of at least some of these may in fact date to the end of the Old Kingdom (on the resulting linguistic layering in the Coffin Texts). Old Egyptian can be considered a dialect as well as a historical stage of Egyptian. Judging from its predominantly Memphite attestation, it probably represents a northern variety of the language. It shares with Late Egyptian a number of grammatical features that are absent in the intervening stage of Middle Egyptian. These suggest that Late Egyptian represents a related dialect, although it is primarily attested in Upper Egyptian sources.

“Old Egyptian was first codified as a distinct stage of the language in the middle of the twentieth century. The grammar of the Pyramid Texts has merited two independent studies, and the narrative verbal system of tomb biographies has been examined by Doret. A study of 4th Dynasty inscriptions specifically is Schweitzer. These are complemented by a number of smaller studies in journal articles, such as those of Edel and Schenkel’s studies of the Coffin Texts . Edel’s Altägyptische Grammatik remains the standard reference work for Old Egyptian, except for the verbal system, now supplemented by other studies, such as Allen, Doret, and Stauder. Particles are now discussed in Oréal.”

Old Egyptian Sources

James Allen of Brown University wrote: “Most Old Egyptian texts were inscribed on stone in hieroglyphs; the accounts and non- royal letters were written in hieratic on papyrus, and the Coffin Texts exhibit a mixture of carved or painted hieroglyphs, cursive hieroglyphs, and hieratic on stone, wood, or papyrus. With the partial exception of some Coffin Texts, these sources exhibit a number of orthographic conventions different from those of later texts. [Source: James Allen, Brown University, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2015, escholarship.org ]

Ancient Egyptian language family tree

Old Egyptian texts consist primarily of tomb inscriptions. Those from non-royal tombs generally represent the genre known as tomb biographies, in which the deceased (usually in the first person) recounts his achievements and his deeds on behalf of the pharaoh. A few of these also preserve the text of letters received from the king, most notably those of Senedjemib Inti (Dynasty 5, Giza) Brovarski 2002: 89-110) and Harkhuf (Dynasty 6, Aswan: a letter of Pepi II). Royal tombinscriptions are primarily Pyramid Texts, a collection of rituals and magic spells inscribed in the pyramids of King Unas (Dynasty 5) and his successors of Dynasties 6 and 8. These are ancestral to the Coffin Texts; some of the spells in both corpora are identical, and other Coffin Texts are reedited versions of those from the Pyramid Texts. A number of royal decrees are also preserved.

“Representatives of other textual genres are minimal. These include accounts from royal funerary establishments of Dynasty 5, rock inscriptions, a few non-royal letters, and the dialogue and songs of workers depicted in non-royal tombs. A further source for the study of Old Egyptian is represented by personal names. Notably absent are “scientific” texts (medical and mathematical) and literary texts such as the stories and wisdom literature of the Middle Kingdom; although some of those are ascribed to Old Kingdom authors, they are composed in Middle Egyptian and preserved in manuscripts that date, at the earliest, to the Middle Kingdom. Translations of Old Egyptian texts include Strudwick (2005: tomb biographies and royal decrees), Allen (2005: Pyramid Texts), and Wente (1990: letters). Most Old Egyptian texts have been indexed lexically in the online Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptia (http://aaew2.bbaw.de/tla/index.html).

“The limited nature of this corpus presents some difficulties in the description of Old Egyptian grammar. Funerary texts can be suspected of language that is formalized and somewhat archaic; they contain virtually no narrative and little dialogue. Tomb biographies do contain narrative sequences but were composed as records of accomplishments rather than as historical narrations of past events. It is therefore difficult to determine, for instance, precisely how the language expressed the historical past as opposed to the perfect, if it made such a distinction at all. As an example, the tomb biography of Harkhuf expresses two commissions of the king in close succession with different forms of the same verb: jw hAb.n w Hm n mr.n-ra nb(.j) Hna (j)t.(j) … r jmAm and hAb w Hm.f m snnw zp wa.k: do these represent merely stylistic variants or a true grammatical contrast between historical perfect (“The Incarnation of Merenra, my lord, has sent me with my father … to Yam”) and past (“His Incarnation sent me a second time alone”)?

Old Egyptian Phonology

James Allen of Brown University wrote: “The phonemic inventory of Old Egyptian differs from that of its descendants in several respects . The consonants represented by the transcription symbols z and s (most likely [th] as in think and [s] as in sink, respectively), which are conflated (as s) in later stages, are still distinct. The historical derivation of T from k is evinced by pairs such as kw ~ Tw “you”, undoubtedly reflecting a process of palatalization and fronting: [ku] (or [kúwa]) [kyu] [tyu]. [Source: James Allen, Brown University, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2015, escholarship.org ]

Egyptian lects

“Old Egyptian also demonstrates the derivation of S from X. These two consonants do not appear to be phonemically distinct, at least in the Pyramid Texts. Although some words are written only with the uniliteral signs for each (for example, Sj “lake” and Xt “belly”), some that later have X, such as pXr “go around,” are written with S (pSr), and some with both (such SAt and XAt “corpse,” later only XAt). A spelling such as SXAt—never the reverse, XSAt—both indicates that the š-sign had come to be pronounced as [š] in some words and signals that the older pronunciation of the sign was intended. Since both consonants are cognate with Semitic H (e.g., Hm ≈ Sm “father-in-law” and Hlo ≈ Xao “shave”), these phenomena apparently reflect a historical process of fronting and palatalization: H X ([xy]) and then, in some words, X S.

“A number of the sound changes that characterize later stages of the language are first attested in Old Egyptian. Depalatalization of T t appears a few times in late Dynasty 6. Loss of the feminine ending t occurs sporadically in attributives but is also suggested for nouns by the occasional use of a suppletive t in pronominal forms: e.g., mrt nb jrt.n stS “everything painful that Seth has done”.”

Lexical Morphology of Old Egyptian

“Unlike later stages of the language, Old Egyptian has the full range of six gender and number forms: masculine and feminine; singular, plural, and dual. The dual is still productive for nouns of all types—e.g., HfAwj “two snakes”—and not, as in Middle Egyptian, merely for those that typically appear in pairs. Adjectives show not only the three common forms—masculine singular, masculine plural, and feminine (singular)—but also occasional instances of the dual and feminine plural. Dual forms, obsolescent in Middle Egyptian, are attested for personal pronouns; when used attributively, the demonstratives pn/tn, pw/tw, and pf/tf have plurals formed with initial jp, obsolescent in later texts: jpn/jptn, jpw/jptw, and jpf/jptf (jpp- written jp). The stative may also have dual pronominal suffixes, at least for the third person feminine, and the third person plural distinguishes masculine and feminine in place of the unitary (masculine) suffix of Middle Egyptian. [Source: James Allen, Brown University, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2015, escholarship.org ]

“Second- and third-person singular independent pronouns are formed from their dependent counterparts (Tw/Tm → Twt/Tmt, sw/sj → swt/stt); the later forms consisting of jnt- plus a suffix pronoun are first attested at the end of Dynasty 6. The 1pl stative suffix is nw as well as the more common form in later texts, wjn. The neutral third-person pronoun st does not exist in Old Egyptian.

“One of the features that Old Egyptian has in common with Late Egyptian, but not Middle Egyptian, is gender and number concord between an initial nominal predicate and a following demonstrative subject (“copula”) in the non-verbal A pw construction: e.g., zA.k pw “he is your son,” jst tw “it is Isis,” msw nwt nw “they are Nut’s children”. The Middle Egyptian construction using the invariable masculine singular form of the demonstrative, however, also appears sporadically, as well as in the tripartite A pw B construction.”

idea that there was a primeval language

Old Egyptian Verb Forms

James Allen of Brown University wrote: “Old Egyptian exhibits the full range of synthetic verb forms (those distinguished by changes in the forms of a word), although one of these, the sDm.xr.f, is attested only once. Infinitival forms are the negatival complement, a number of verbal nouns, and the complementary infinitive. The first of these shows some evidence of being derived from a finite verb form through omission of an expressed subject: e.g., m jmk ~ m jmk.k “don’t rot” ~ “don’t you rot”, the second of these peculiar to Old Egyptian. Verbal nouns have four forms: the verb root (e.g., Htp) and the root plus the endings -t, -w or -y, and -wt or -yt (e.g., Htpt, Htpw and Htpy, Htpwt). The first two are used, for different verbs, in the paradigm of the infinitive, but it is not certain that a distinct infinitive existed as such, as least in the Pyramid Texts. The first and third forms (Htp and Htpw) characterize the complementary infinitive, which is used to reinforce a verbal predicate based on the same root. [Source: James Allen, Brown University, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2015, escholarship.org ]

“Finite nominal forms are the active and passive participles and the sDmtj.f or “verbal adjective” . Forms are generally the same as in Middle Egyptian with the exception of the geminated 2-lit. passive participle (e.g., xmm “unknown”), which is more common than in later texts. As in Middle Egyptian, the sDm.f and sDm.n.f can be used in attributive function; when they receive endings reflecting the gender and number of their antecedent, they are commonly known as relative forms. The active participle and the relative sDm.f and sDm.n.f of some verbs occasionally have prefixed forms; prefixed examples of the first two appear sporadically in Middle Egyptian and more frequently again in Late Egyptian.

“The imperative has singular and non- singular forms, as in Middle Egyptian; the latter has the ending -y in the Pyramid Texts and elsewhere also -w as in Middle Egyptian. Prefixed forms are common, as in Late Egyptian; a few are also attested in Middle Egyptian. The stative also has occasional prefixed forms; these disappear in later stages of the language. The category of the suffix conjugation comprises six or seven forms: active sDm.f, passive sDm.f, sDm.n.f, sDm.jn.f, sDm.xr.f, sDm.kA.f, and sDmt.f, the last probably an infinitival form rather than a finite one. Prefixed forms are attested for the active sDm.f and the sDm.n.f; these are absent in later stages of the language except for rare examples of the prefixed sDm.f in Middle Egyptian.”

Coptic language, still used by Copts in Egypt, developed from ancient Egyptian

Names in Ancient Egypt

In ancient times people generally had only one name, which was given at birth. People with the same name were often differentiated from one another by identifying them as the son of someone (i.e. James, the son of Zeledee in the Bible) or linking them to their birthplace (i.e. Paul of Tarsus, also from the Bible).

Gayle Gibson, an Egyptologist at the Royal Ontario Museum, told Smithsonian magazine: “The Egyptians didn’t want to be forgotten. They needed to be remembered. They wanted us to say their names, because to say the name of the dead is to make them live again.” [Source: Matthew Shaer, Smithsonian Magazine, December 2014]

One ancient hieroglyphic text reads: “Man perishes; his corpse turns to dust; all his relatives pass away. But writings make him remembered in the mouth of the reader. A book is more effective than a well-built house or a tomb-chapel in the west, better than an established villa or a stela in the temple!” [Source: Toby Wilkinson, an Egyptologist at the University of Cambridge. From the book, called “Writings From Ancient Egypt“, Nathaniel Scharping, Discover, September 22, 2016]

Günter Vittmann of the University of Würzburg wrote: “In ancient Egypt, an individual’s name was of vital importance for defining his identity in society and assuring his survival for posterity. A person might have two or even three names, one of them sometimes being a basilophorous name (a name that incorporates a king’s name)adopted by the individual at a certain stage of life. For foreigners, taking an Egyptian name was frequently a means by which they integrated into Egyptian society. Grave crimes would entail damnatio memoriae, a process by which a person’s identity could essentially be erased by mutilation and obliteration of the name. Certain personal names also hadapotropaic potential, and the names of the sages of the past could even be used in magic. [Source: Günter Vittmann, University of Würzburg, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2013, escholarship.org ]

“For the ancient Egyptians, name and essence were inseparably interconnected. The world was created by pronouncing the name of everything that came into existence and, in magical practice, knowing the “true” name of supranatural and transcendent beings helped one to gain power over them. Thus, the name (rn) was considered a vital constituent of one’s personality and was, to a certain extent, interchangeable with the concept of the ka (kA), the latter term sometimes being used as a synonym for rn. In Egypt, as elsewhere, the personal name of an individual was the most important means of identification, not only in this life, but in the hereafter and in social memory for eternity (for the immortal aspect of the name). Already by the Early Dynastic Period, royal retainers and officials had their names inscribed on their funerary stelae and clay seals.

comparison of ancient Egyptian and the Wolof language spoken in Senegal, the Gambia and Mauritania

“During the Old Kingdom and quite often later, the personal name, supplemented with rank and title(s), was usually considered sufficient for the identification of the living and the dead. By the Middle Kingdom, however, it became widespread to add the individual’s parentage—the names of either father or mother, or both—to present an unequivocal identification. Thus household lists of the Middle Kingdom introduce the (always male) head-of-household in the inverted form “Y’s son X” (the typical manner of filiation, which emerged in the late Old Kingdom and was prevalent during the Middle Kingdom) and mention each member, including children, by name. In the numerous name-lists included in the documents relating to the tomb robberies of the late New Kingdom, persons are identified by name and either their title or father’s name, or both.

“From the Third Intermediate Period onward, there was a heightened concern to display lengthy genealogies sometimes going back far into the past. It is clear that this is more than simple “identification”; rather, it can be understood as a determined effort to legitimize the holding of profitable priestly and official functions within the individual’s own family, “from son to son.” In contrast, when a confidant of the king, such as Petamenophis, the owner of the largest Late Period tomb in Thebes, gives only the name of his mother and, unusually, never that of his father or those of his ancestors, this may indicate that he was an “outsider” who did not descend from a prominent family.”

Multiple Names, New Names and Birth Names in Ancient Egypt

Günter Vittmann of the University of Würzburg wrote: “In addition to the name one received from his parents—perhaps especially from his mother immediately after birth and that often had a close connection with the circumstances of his birth—an individual could acquire other names in different stages of his life. Two different names of a person could alternate when inscribed either on the same object or on various places of a coherent architectural context. A “classic” example is the High Priest of Amun Rm of the late 19th Dynasty, who also called himself Ry. [Source: Günter Vittmann, University of Würzburg, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2013, escholarship.org ]

“In the Old Kingdom (2649–2150 B.C.), it was common to have two names: a “major name” (rn aA), which often was an official theophorous or basilophorous name (that is, one that included the name of a deity or king, respectively), and a “minor name” (rn nDs) or “beautiful name,” which occasionally was an abbreviation of the major name and served as a first name

“During the Middle Kingdom, double names still enjoyed much popularity, but the designation “beautiful (or final) name” gradually fell out of use, giving way to the formula “A Ddw n.f B” (“A who is called B”)...“Beautiful names” were reintroduced in the Late Period, most of the evidence (the names of more than 110 individuals) being datable to the 26th Dynasty. However, their use now followed the looser naming patterns of the Middle Kingdom and later, rather than the somewhat rigid double- (and triple-) name system of the Old Kingdom. Unlike most of the “final” names of the Old Kingdom, such names were often basilophorous and formal in character. There are also a few late examples of “major names” from the late 26th and early 27th Dynasties.

“The natural setting of many names is the situation immediately associated with birth. Such names usually express relief and happiness, a wish or its fulfilment, a hope or a statement made by the name-giver. Though there are some explicit sources pointing to the role of the mother as name-giver, it is usually impossible to relate a personal name directly to the mother. Theoretically, the “speaker” in names such as NHt.n.j “She whom I desired” or anx,f/s “May he/she live!” might be either the father or the mother, although Ranke, as a rule, preferred the latter option.

“It is important, however, to make a distinction between the original context of a name, or name-pattern, on the one hand, and the reason for its use in a particular case, on the other hand. A name such as 9d-PtH-jw.f- anx “Ptah said, he will live”, for example, evokes the decision of an oracle in which Ptah reassured the anxious parents that the child would survive; in view of the high rate of child mortality in antiquity, this was certainly a very realistic concern. However, this does not mean that every individual named 9d-PtH-jw.f-anx necessarily owed his name to an oracular decision of Ptah. Similarly, there is no reason to believe that every Jmn-m-Hb was born on the day of the festival of Amun, although this is probably the original implication of that name. Still other factors such as papponymy (i.e., naming after the grandfather) would often determine the use of a given name.”

Names and Status in Ancient Egyptian Society

Günter Vittmann of the University of Würzburg wrote: “An important function of the name was as a means of integrating the bearer fully into Egyptian society. At the lowest level, foreign servants and slaves often received an additional Egyptian name that often did not differ fundamentally from names held by “genuine” Egyptians. It may be supposed that in everyday life, the new name supplanted the old one, especially when such people were separated from their original social environment. In a juridical papyrus from the New Kingdom it is explicitly reported that an imported Syrian slave girl was given an Egyptian name by her owner after he purchased her from a Syrian merchant. Her new and otherwise unattested name, Gm.n.j-Hr-Jmntt “I found (her) in the West” or “(She) whom I found in the West”, presumably refers to the circumstances of her acquisition, whereas the original name of the girl was of no interest and is therefore not mentioned in the document. [Source: Günter Vittmann, University of Würzburg, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2013, escholarship.org ]

“At a higher social level, Egyptianized foreigners would often adopt an Egyptian name to underscore their (partial?) assimilation, as did WAH-jb-Ra-m-Axt in the 26th Dynasty, who was of Greek descent. Such visible examples are somewhat rare; unless there is clear genealogical or iconographical evidence, it is practically impossible to recognize an individual’s ethnic background. This is, however, in keeping with the Egyptian concept that an assimilated foreigner had (more or less) ceased to be a foreigner and was considered an Egyptian.

“In the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods it was not unusual for an individual to have both an Egyptian and a Greek name, the latter in an official Greek socio-cultural context, the former in more traditional Egyptian contexts, such as priestly roles. The Greek name was often a translation, or “interpretatio Graeca,” of the Egyptian name, e.g., PA-bjk “The Falcon” = ‘Ιέραξ because of the equation “ibis” = Thoth = Hermes. An important study on double names in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt on the basis of Greek papyrology was published by Calderini.”

Name Choice in Ancient Egypt

golden cylinder with the name of the pharoah Djedkare Isesi

Günter Vittmann of the University of Würzburg wrote: “Names were by no means always freely chosen out of personal feeling or desire. Although there were apparently no firm rules for name-giving, it was usual to select names that were already extant in the family in order to stress the unity of the line. For example, in the family of Ppj- anx the Middle, the owner of an Old Kingdom tomb in Meir (Middle Egypt), the names Ppj-anx and Nj-anx-Ppj were endemic. Papponymy (i.e., naming after the grandfather), though especially in vogue in the Late Period, was already well attested in the Old Kingdom. The genealogical pattern “A, son of B, son of A2” (and not rarely with “son of B2” following as well) is ubiquitous, which sometimes makes the identification of the members of a family problematic. Often the cultic-religious background of a family was also decisive for the choice of name. Thus, it is natural that names with the elements Amun, Mut, Khons, or Montu abound in the Theban area. [Source: Günter Vittmann, University of Würzburg, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2013, escholarship.org ]

“Outside such contexts, it is extremely difficult to interpret the reasons governing the choice of a particular name. On her funerary stela, Taimhotep, a noble lady of Ptolemaic Memphis, tells the reader that her son Imhotep was born on the festival of his divinized name-sake, who had granted her (the mother), by oracle, the highly desired birth of a son, who was also called Petubastis.

“A crucial aspect of the personal name was its function as a pledge for eternal life not only in the next world (three short spells of the Coffin Texts, nos. 410 - 412, and Chapter 25 of the Book of the Dead are all concerned with preventing a man from forgetting his name) but also in this one, in the memory of later generations. As an Egyptian proverb put it, “A man lives when his name is mentioned”. Inscriptions in the accessible parts of tombs destined for the offering cult and on temple statues invited people to keep the memory of the deceased and his good reputation alive. In several places in the entrance to his tomb at Tuna el- Gebel, Petosiris exhorts the visitors to comply with this desire: “O every prophet, every wab-priest, every scribe, every scholar who will enter this necropolis and see this tomb, may you mention my good name and say, ‘An invocation offering consisting of bread, beer, oxen, geese and all good things for the ka of the lord of this tomb!’. Who(ever) comes and goes in order to lay down offerings in this necropolis, all those who enter the temple of the great bas in order to do offerings in it at its (right) time, may you mention my good name next to these gods and bow for me your arms with an ‘offering which the king gives’ (i.e., a funerary offering) because I am a man for whom one should act.”.

“In this context, an individual’s integration into society through his adherence to the principles of maat was considered of vital importance. Demonstrating your noble character and thus convincing others that you deserve both the necessary mortuary offerings and a good standing in the memory of survivors was the principal aim of so-called autobiographical inscriptions.

Personal Name Structure in Ancient Egypt

ball bead with name of the female pharoah Hatshepsut

Günter Vittmann of the University of Würzburg wrote: “The diversity and complexity of ancient Egyptian personal names points to a range of available patterns and options for name-giving. Alongside personal names that make direct reference tothe name-bearer and his or her family, there are numerous names that refer to a god, the ruling(or an earlier) king, or some venerated individual, with or without simultaneous reference to the name-bearer or his family. An individual could be designated, for example, as one beloved ,given, or protected by a god or king, but a name could equally contain an objective statement about god or king. [Source: Günter Vittmann, University of Würzburg, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2013, escholarship.org ]

“Ancient Egyptian personal names were manifold both in structure and in meaning. From a purely formal point of view, most Egyptian personal names may be assigned to one of the following three basic groups, such as Jbj “Ibi”; 1r “Horus”; PA-whr “The dog”; PA-MDAy “The Medja-man”; NHsj, PA- NHsj “The Nubian”.

There were“compound names not constituting a complete sentence, e.g., PA-ntj-n(.j) “He who belongs to me”; 3st-wrt “Great Isis,” “Isis the great”; 8dw-4bk, later PA-dj-4bk “Given by Sobek,” “He whom Sobek has given”. “ There were also “names constituting a complete sentence, e.g., Nj-anx(.j?)-4xmt “(My?) life belongs to Sakhmet” ; Nb(.j)-pw-4-n-wsrt “Senusret is my lord”; Jmn-m-HAt “Amun is in front”; 2Aa.w-s- n-3st “They laid him/her before Isis”; Ns-2nsw “He/She belongs to Khons”.”

Types of Names in Ancient Egypt

Günter Vittmann of the University of Würzburg wrote: “Extremely common in all periods of Egyptian history were “theophorous” names, expressing a relationship between the name- bearer, or his parents, and a deity (or deities). Theophorous name-patterns varied over time, the most prevalent being: The individual as “belonging” to god X: Nj-X (Old Kingdom), e.g., Nj-BAstt “Who belongs to Bastet”; Nj-PtH “Who belongs to Ptah”; PA-n/Pa-X, 6A-nt/Ta-X “He/She of X”, e.g., PA-n-Jmn/Pa-Jmn “He of Amun”; 6A-nt-Jmn /Ta-Jmn “She of Amun”; and Nj-sw/sj-X = Ns-X “He/She belongs to X”, e.g., Ns- 2nsw “He/She belongs to Khons”. One could also “belong” to a holy emblem, such as the sacred staff: a common Late Period name was Ns-pA-mdw/Ns-pA-mtr “He/She belongs to the (holy) staff”. [Source: Günter Vittmann, University of Würzburg, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2013, escholarship.org ]

cartouche of King Tut (Tutankhamun)

Examples of (endophorous) names lacking any mention of divinities or kings include NHt.n.j “She whom I desired”; Jw.f-aA/Jw.f-aw “He will attain old age”; Jw.f/s-r/Ø-anx “He/she lives,” “He/she will live/survive”; anx.f/s “May he/she live!” equivalent to older 1A- anx.f/s; and Rn(.j)-snb “My name is healthy”(a typical Middle Kingdom name). In names of the Old and Middle Kingdoms, the concept of the ka plays a vital role, e.g., WHm- kA(.j) “Who repeats my ka” (i.e., “My double”; I 83,23 with a slightly different reading), and Mrrw-kA(.j) “Whom my ka loves”.

“Sometimes names evoked an individual’s physical features, e.g., FnDj “He with the nose,” “Nosy”, Nxt “Strong”, and Nfr/Nfrt “Beautiful; Perfect”, but it is also possible that the first of these three examples, with its variants, is an epithet of Thoth used as a personal name that should be translated as “He/She with the beak.”

“Names based on titles may involve administrative, military, and priestly functions, as well as those of other professions, e.g., PA-jmj-rA-Snwt “The Overseer of the Granary”; PA-jmj-rA-mSa, conventionally translated as “The General”; PA-Hrj-pDt “The Overseer of the Archers,” “The Troop- commander”; PA-jt-nTr “The God’s Father”; PA- Hm-nTr “The Prophet”; and PA-jn-mw “The Water-carrier”. There are also more complex formations that give the impression of being a kind of appellative rather than a true personal name, e.g., PA-Hm-nTr-2.nw “The Second Prophet,” or PA-Hm-nTr-MAat “The Prophet of Maat”.

“Several animal names are known, especially from the Old and Middle Kingdoms, that might not be expected to be chosen for people, e.g., Pnw “Mouse” and 1fnr “Tadpole”, also found in the Old Testament in the form 1opnî, 1Dr, and similarly “Hyena. By the Late Period, but perhaps already earlier, animal names had acquired a religious dimension, e.g., PA-bjk “The falcon”; the two phonetically similar names PA- mAj “The lion” and PA- mjw“The cat”; PA-msH “The crocodile”; PA-Hf “The snake”; and 6A-Hf-SpSt “The sacred snake”. For certain names such as PA- orr “The frog”, an animal associated with regeneration, or 1nvs “Lizard”; 6A-Hfllj “The lizard”, this background is less evident but still possible, whereas for Demotic alal, PA-alal, 6A- alal “The shrew-mouse”, it may be considered definite.

official cylinder seal of Pepi II

“Plant names were not uncommon in the Old and Middle Kingdom, e.g., 4SSn “Lotus flower”, the ultimate origin of “Susan” and similar formations in European languages, and Jsr “Tamarisk”. These are rather rare by the Late Period, but names such as GAwt- sSn “Lotus bundle”; 1mDrv “Asphodel”; and 6A-wrv, 6A-wrv-mn “The Rose,” “The Rose of Min” are attested. For the case of Nhj-wrt “Great sycamore,” see below under Theophorus Names.”

Royal Names in Ancient Egypt

Günter Vittmann of the University of Würzburg wrote: “There are two types of names based on royal names: 1) Unextended royal names, consisting of either the birth name; 2) “Names composed with a royal name, often, but not always, forming a complete sentence. Examples of Unextended royal names: Jmn-m-HAt “Amenemhat”, abbreviated Jmny, 4-n-wsrt “Senusret”, 9Hwtj-ms “Thutmose”, 5Sno “Shoshenq” , PsmTk “Psammetichus”, JaH-ms “Amasis”—or the throne name, e.g., 4Htp-jb-Ra “Sehetepibra”, 2pr-kA-Ra “Kheperkara”, Mn- xpr-Ra “Menkheperra”, WAH-jb-Ra “Wahibra”, Nfr-jb-Ra “Neferibra”, 3nm-jb-Ra “Khenem- ibra”, these being the throne names of Amenemhat I, Senusret I, Thutmose III, Psammetichus I and II, and Amasis respectively, which were widely used as personal names during and after the reigns of those kings. [Source: Günter Vittmann, University of Würzburg, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2013, escholarship.org ]

Examples of names composed with a royal name, with a complete sentence: Mry-ttj “Beloved by Teti”, Mry-Ra-anx “Merira (Pepy I is alive”), Ra-ms-s(w)-nxt “Ramesses is strong, or victorious”, anx-5Sno “May Shoshenq live”, 3nm-jb-Ra-mn “Khenemibra (i.e., Amasis) is enduring”, whose formulations are analogous to those of theophorous names as described above.

“Royal names often offer no more than the terminus a quo for dating; thus one must examine each case individually. In the Old Kingdom, unextended royal names were generally not used as personal names, 6tj presumably being no exception as it need not be the king’s name. Compound basilophorous names were used, however, both during the reigns of the respective kings and later, e.g., 4nfrw-Htp “Seneferu is content”, 2wfw-nxt “Khufu is strong, or victorious”, 2wfw-mr-nTrw “Khufu is beloved by the gods”, 2wfw-m-Axt “Khufu is in the horizon”, anx(.j)-m-a-9d.f- Ra “My life is in the hand of Djedefra”.”

Honorifics, Distinguishing Like-Named Persons and Names Based on Others

cartouche of Thutmosis III on a chalice

Günter Vittmann of the University of Würzburg wrote: “In addition to theophorous and basilophorous personal names, there are also names based or other of special importance to the name- bearer. It is often impossible to determine the kind of relationship between the “borrower” and the “lender.” In some instances it is probable that the use of a personal name as a part of a more complex name points to the veneration of a deceased and deified individual. For example, this seems to be the case with names composed with 6tj in early New Kingdom Thebes, such as 6tj-an “Tety is beautiful,” 6tj-anx “Tety is alive,” and simply 6tj “Tety”. In other instances, a parent of the name-bearer might be involved, as in MHw-m-HAt “Mehu is in front” and Nb(j)-pw-MHw “Mehu is my lord” (two sons of the vizier Mehu), or, alternatively, a superior of the name-bearer. An instructive example of the latter from the 20th Dynasty is the name Ra-ms-s(w)-nxt-mn “Ramessenakht is enduring.” This hitherto unattested name of a temple carpenter from Karnak is clearly based on the name of his superior, the High Priest of Amun Ra-ms-s(w)-nxt, which in turn is a basilophorous name as described above. [Source: Günter Vittmann, University of Würzburg, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2013, escholarship.org ]

“An important phenomenon is “honorific transposition”. Theophorous or basilophorous elements would frequently be written at the beginning of the name, even if pronounced in the syntactically appropriate place. As a consequence, there are ambiguous examples: A name written PtH + Htp might well be understood as 1tp-PtH. The problem is complicated by the fact that both types, in the concrete case Htp - divinity/divinity - Htp, were in use as we know from Greek renderings, e.g., Jmn-Htp).

“When father and son (or elder brother and younger brother, and the like) had the same name, ambiguities would often be avoided by additions such as wr, later pA aA, “senior,” or nDs, later nxn, and (especially in the Late Period) pA xm “junior.” If several like-named individuals had to be distinguished, Hrj-jb “the middle one” could be added. Apparently, these distinguishing additions were sometimes treated by the Egyptians themselves as integral constituents of the name, as we may infer from Greek renderings.”

Ethnonyms, Banned Names and Persons Without Names

cartouche of Ramses II

Günter Vittmann of the University of Würzburg wrote: “Ethnonyms that were also used as personal names include aAm, aAmt “the Asiatic (man/woman)”. Examples occur mostly in the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2030–1640 B.C.), although some exceptions are already attested in the late Old Kingdom. NHsj, later PA-nHsj, 6A-nHsjt “the Nubian (man/woman)” is attested from the Middle Kingdom to the Late Period, as is JkSj, later PA-jkS, 6A-jkS “the Kushite (man/woman)”. PA-xr, 6A-xrt “the Syrian (man/woman)” is known from the New Kingdom to the Late Period, while PA-jSwr, PA-jSr “The Syrian” (man) is only attested in the Late Period. [Source: Günter Vittmann, University of Würzburg, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2013, escholarship.org ]

“In some stelae of the Middle Kingdom we find individuals referred to as “He/She is unknown,” a phrase that had been interpreted as a proper name by Ranke. Spiegel argued that these formulations were rather devices for indicating persons whose identity, for some reason or another, had become unknown, but Fischer showed that they are actual personal names. Two Demotic papyri from the Ptolemaic Period (304–30 B.C.) contain the group Bw-jr-rx.j-rn.f, “I do not know his name,” in a context where a personal name is expected, and the Greek rendering Βερεχερινος seems to confirm this. Nevertheless, it is perhaps possible that at least the first instance, as supposed by its editor, is a case of “anonymous paternity.” The frequent Demotic personal names PA- bw-jr-rx.f and PA-bw-jr-rx.s are usually understood in the sense of “He is not known” or “Anonymous”. Quaegebeur doubted this interpretation, without, however, specifying his reasons.

“In much the same way as Tutankhaton had his name changed to Tutankhamen, so too an individual’s name, if considered “politically incorrect,” had to be altered. Such was the case with at least three individuals called Parennefer (PA-rn-nfr) “the beautiful name,” or perhaps rather “He of (the king with) the beautiful name”, alluding to the odious interlude of Amarna. The most important of them, a High Priest of Amun, was also called Wnn-nfr; his other name fell victim to persecution in the early part of the reign of Ramesses II.”

Mutilated and Obliterated Names

Günter Vittmann of the University of Würzburg wrote: “In addition to erasure, there were several ways of dealing with the names of disgraced persons . The changing of an individual’s name as a punishment for criminal behavior is attested in the so-called “Turin Judicial Papyrus” relating to the harem conspiracy under Ramesses III. For example, the “new” sinister names MsD-sw-Ra “Ra hates him” and Bjn-m- WAst “Bad in Thebes,” or “(The) bad one is in Thebes”, conferred on two of the criminals clearly point to original forms with opposite meanings, Mr-sw-Ra and Nfr-m- WAst, and indirectly evoke Seth, who could be named Bjn-rn.f “Whose name is bad”. [Source: Günter Vittmann, University of Würzburg, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2013, escholarship.org ]

“In a Demotic papyrus from the Roman Period, a man who had committed several cultic sacrileges is delivered the following message of an oracle-giving divine child by a third party: “I did not allow your name to be called, the name which your mother gave to you. Your name will be called PtrAA, (although) Petarensnuphis was your (original) name, because I have found out your heart. Similarly with reference to another evildoer whose name had been changed to PA-dj: “I changed the name which your mother gave to you. I did not allow your name to be called Petosiris son of Espmetis, because I have found out your heart”. The highly pejorative use of these apparent abbreviations is noteworthy and surprising, given the fact that abbreviations were otherwise rather common at all periods of Egyptian history.

“Another means of outlawing an individual consisted in adding an appropriate determinative to the unchanged name. In some papyri of the late Ramesside Period, the name of the general and viceroy of Nubia PAj- nHsj is provided with the determinative for enemies. The extinction of name, memory, and future existence is often mentioned as a threat for potential evildoers and there is enough philological and archaeological evidence to show that such threats were realized when necessary. A royal decree from the 17th Dynasty stipulates the grave measures that are to be taken against “Cursed be his name! (wA n rn.f), Teti’s son Minhotep” for some serious cultic crime the exact nature of which is a matter of debate: he is to be ousted forever from both his office and his position in the temple, his provisions are to be canceled, and “his name shall not be remembered in this temple”. The result of similar measures may be seen in the well-known cases of Senenmut and other persons of the New Kingdom but is also attested in Old Kingdom tombs of several officials in Saqqara.”

cartouche of Cleopatra at Edfu temple

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons except Coptic and Wolof language charts, Quora.com and the Proto-Semitic chart, Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Text Sources: UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, escholarship.org ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Egypt sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Tour Egypt, Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com; Mark Millmore, discoveringegypt.com discoveringegypt.com; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated September 2018