New Rulers, New Names

Abstract This chapter uses onomastic data from the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names and Trismegistos to investigate those names which became regular Greek names of Egypt but are far less frequently found in the Greek world elsewhere. The period involved is from Alexander’s conquest until c.  ad 400, so before the onomastic changes that followed Egypt’s Christianization. The authors seek not only to provide a typology of names but also, taking account of differences in the data, to locate and explain the predominance of certain names in different areas of Egypt, at a regional or even village level. The two main categories consist of names with or without a clear religious element. Names with a religious component came in many forms, ranging from the simple adoption of names of Greek gods and heroes as personal names, through the Hellenization of Egyptian gods by the addition of different components, by Greek suffixation, or translation, through phonetic similarity, and so on. Names with no clear religious connotations include dynastic names amid a range of others. A third section considers the role of certain affixes in the formation of Greek names typical of Egypt. The study serves to illuminate local differences, particularly in religion, and changing patterns of onomastic behaviour.