Questions tagged [names]
For questions about personal names (Ancient and Modern) in the Latin language.
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How to say “Indiana Jones” in Latin?
I know that usually we do not translate names, but how would you translate Indiana Jones into Latin?
According to Wikipedia, Jones is literally John's son in Welsh, and it's related to Latin Ioannes ...
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How were names ending in -ιον used in Greek?
In the plays of Plautus, there are some names ending in -um. They are generally formed as Greek names (whether genuine or pseudo-Greek), and the Latin ending -um here seems to correspond to the Greek ...
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How often were names ending in -um used in real life?
There seem to be a number of examples of personal names ending in -um in the works of Plautus (apparently, they also show up in Terence1). In a discussion on Wiktionary, I found an interesting comment ...
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Male personal names ending in -um
A number of personal names in the works of Plautus end in -um in the nominative singular, which struck me as odd when I first encountered them, since nominative singular -um is characteristically ...
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What did the Greeks and Romans call their pets?
I know that some Greeks and Romans kept pet canēs, cattī, and even dracōnēs. My question now is: what did they name them?
In other words, do we have attestations of how the ancients named their pets? ...
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Why is Descartes Latinised as Cartesius?
The famous French philosopher Rene Descartes is Latinised as Renatus Cartesius. Those unfamiliar with this, or with his thought in general, might then not realise that some words are derived from his ...
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How are “Arsaces” and “Gotarzes” declined, and why?
Declinatione nominum latinorum a nominibus graecis quae -ης finiuntur perturbor.
Dictionarium L&S exhibet "Arsăces, is m." a nomine graeco Ἀρσάκης. (E in syllaba ultima de "Arsăces" longum esse ...
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Are there gender-neutral names in Latin?
Latin has some "epicene nouns", like canis "dog", which can be either masculine or feminine: a good dog could be either a canis bonus or a canis bona, depending on the dog in question.
Are there any ...
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How were Greek patronymics stressed in Latin?
According to Wikipedia, the Scipios (as in Africanus) were known collectively as the Scīpiadae rather than the Scīpionēs. This was a rather poetic Greek way to say "sons of Scipio", as in the Atreïdae ...
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How do you pronounce “Aeclepiadae”?
Just as the title says. Or should it really be "Asclepiadae", since it comes from "Asclepius"?
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Latin form of Igor
How would you translate the name Igor into Latin? The Latin Wikipedia uses Inguarus (e.g. Inguarus Stravinskij), which is the Latinised version of Ingvar.
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What is the Latin name for the Romani people?
The Romani (aka Gypsies, though some consider that a slur) are nomadic people who dispersed across Europe about a thousand years ago. In other languages they have exonyms like tzigane, gitan, and ...
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Request to convert name into Latin
Kindly anyone change the name in Latin form please.
Name:
Hafiz Muhammad Umer Jahagir
Please translate it into Latin.
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Names of main Tintin characters in latin?
The website Tintinologist.org gives the following suggestions but it is not complete for the latin language.
What would be some good latin names for the various Tintin characters ?
Other characters ...
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Someone of someplace
I'm wondering how someone would have said where they're from, sort of as a locational surname. To perhaps better explain, in English we might say, 'Hello, I'm Susan of London.' How would you say ...
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“Alēctō” or “Allēctō”?
"Alēctō" is the name of one of the Furies, made surprisingly famous in the Harry Potter books. It seems to come straightforwardly from Greek ă- "not" + lēg- "stop" + -tos "[adjective]", so "...
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Hexametric Greek names
A number of Greek names encountered in hexameter follow the syllable length pattern -vv-; consider for example Penelope, Telemachos, Calliope, Terpsichore.
The pattern -v-- is absent as the metric ...
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Unde “Laelaps”?
Laelaps was a mythical hunting dog that could always catch its prey. The name comes from Greek λαῖλαψ, "hurricane".
But where does this word come from? LSJ doesn't provide an etymology, and ...
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In what contexts, exactly, did Augustus use the name Octavianus?
Wikipedia says Caesar Augustus was born Gaius Octavius Thurinus, making his nomen Octavius and that nomen would have held sway prior to his ascension to emperor.
Screenwriters, though, seem always to ...
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Do barbarians have nomina?
The word nomen means, literally, "name". But it also refers to the most important part of a Roman citizen's name, the part indicating which gens they belong to.
Barbarian names were frequently ...
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Was the name “Sasan/Sassan” often spelled with a double S in Latin or Greek?
A question on ELU (“Sassanian” vs. “Sasanian”) brought up the fact that the name of Sāsān has often been spelled in English with a double S in the middle: "Sassan". (The same goes for related words ...
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Are there any relationships between the given name Pompeius and the city name Pompeii?
Are there any relationships between the given name Pompeius (like in Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus) and the city name Pompeii (the city thas was destroyed in a volcanic eruption? What do they mean?
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Do plural names referring to a singular thing require a plural verb?
Another question related to my geography of the Roman Empire which I am writing has arisen: during the time of Trajan, 117 AD, there were several provinces which had names in the plural, especially ...
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Why didn't Byzantine emperors after Justinian II have a Latin name?
Justinian II had the Latin name Flavius Iustinianus Augustus and was the last Byzantine emperor from the Heraclian Dynasty, but his successor Philippikos Bardanes did not have a Latin name. Why didn't ...
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Is there a canonical list of Latinized names?
I'm not only talking about names that existed during the classical period, but also the standard Latinization of modern European names; for example hugo, hugonis is the standard medieval Latin ...
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How would one translate “The God-Machine”?
In the Chronicles of Darkness role-playing game, one of the major antagonists is called "the God-Machine": a machine so powerful it seems similar to a god.
I know Latin generally prefers not to stick ...
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Latin transliteration of Ιησούς
Can someone please show me how the Latin Iesus came from Iesous? It sounds like a shorter form of it. Is it just because certain sounds from the Greek wasn't in Latin?
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Where did the name Ulixes come from?
He's Odysseus in Homer, but how did he become Ulixes/Ulysses when he arrived (so to speak) in Rome, where there were many people who knew him from the Iliad and the Odyssey?
And was there a separate ...
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Napoleon/ Scipio [closed]
Students of North & Hillard will be aware that Ex. 229 is a passage about Napoleon. In the answer book Ex. 229 is a passage concerning Scipio.
Does anyone know the refs for the Latin trans. of "...
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What is the etymology and origin of the name of Dido's sister Anna?
Dido's sister and confidante Anna has a name that I believe to be unusual in Latin. Where did this name come from? Is it perhaps Semitic and related to Hebrew Hannah and the derived name Anna? The ...
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1answer
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How do we end up with three vowels at the end of Περικλέους? (Greek)
According to Wiktionary, the genitive of Περικλῆς, or Περικλέης, is Περικλέους; and similarly, that of Σοφοκλῆς, or Σοφοκλέης, Σοφοκλέους.
Question: How do we end up with three vowels, εου, at the ...
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Inflections of Ζεύς
Διώνη is the name of a Titaness, a nymph, and Phoenician goddess. And according to the Wikipedia article on said Titaness, it's derived from the feminine form of the genitive of Ζεύς. And according to ...
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Feminine form of -ίδης
The Ancient Greek suffix -ίδης was used to form masculine patronymics - that is to say, one combines it with X to create a name meaning "Son of X". Examples: Ἀλκείδης ("son of Alkaios"), Ἡρακλεῖδαι ("...
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Creating a “fictional” last name, meaning “wild card”
I am on a quest to create a new last name for myself.
I like the idea of "wildcard," particularly in the computing sense: as a placeholder for anything, however I want something that sounds more ...
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How did the popularities of Roman given names evolve over time?
When a new Roman was born, the parents would give their child a name (praenomen).
Since there is a significant number of known names, there must have been variations in their relative popularities ...
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The Name Timedeus
In a previous question of mine (The Name Amadeus) a fine fellow (code name: "sumelic") conjectured that the name Amadeus comes from the phrase "Ama Deum" ("Love God") with the suffix -us added to ...
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The Names Amadeus, Amadeo, Amadei
Beloved Wikipedia says: Amadeus is a theophoric given name derived from the Latin words ama – the imperative of the word amare (to love) – and deus (god). As a linguistic compound in the form of a ...
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Hypocorism/diminutive name forms in Roman antiquity/Latin?
I'd originally asked this on SE:H, but it was suggested that here would be more appropriate.
Triggered by recently reading about the history of English names with Anglo-Saxon roots and the ...
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Genitive of Sappho: Sapphonis or Sapphus?
As I posted on the Wiktionary Tea Room:
Consulting Bergk's edition of Sappho, I have seem various instances of this genitive "Sapphonis" (e.g. «Sapphonis esse videtur») in the critical notes. This ...
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Did the Romans give names to instances of natural disasters?
It is common to name storms.
For example, a hurricane called Harvey is now over Texas.
On the other hand, ancient people named deities related to various places and natural phenomena.
There might be a ...
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How did the Romans latinize foreign names (personal, place names)?
I am looking for references to linguistic work on latinization of foreign names by the Romans from the earliest days to the early centuries AD. As this is perhaps quite a wide topic, some field review ...
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How to render “'Fun is Good' -Dr. Seuss” in Latin?
"is good" is fairly easy, some form of bŏnum with the verb of being, but I'm having more trouble with the word for "fun".
Part I: "Fun"
Lūdus was my first thought because it refers to play in the ...
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216 views
What was Sappho's name?
I've seen the name of the famous Aeolian poet written as both "Ψαπφω" and "Σαπφω". The latter seems universal in Attic, and hence she's known as "Sappho" in English.
Which of these names is "more ...
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Etymology of Nausicaa?
There was an interesting question on Lit regarding a proposed meaning of Nausicaa as "burner of ships". Although I don't have an issue with the ναῦς/κάω hypothesis, I suspect κάω is more likely used ...
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Dioscuri and Discord
I'm trying to explore if there is any plausible connection between these words. I find them to be somewhat similar in English, where one might carelessly drop the initial "o".
I believe there is ...
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What declension is the name, Aeneas?
How would you decline this noun? It can not be 1st, 2nd, or 3rd declension. Also, how would you say "of Aeneas", which is genitive case?
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Which is the logic behind “Aloysius” Latinisation?
Wikipedia states that Aloysius is:
... a Latinisation of the names Louis, Lewis, Luis, Luigi, Ludwig, and other cognate names (traditionally in Medieval Latin as Ludovicus or Chlodovechus), ...
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Is it acceptable to translate these names in this manner?
After reading this question, I wondered what I could do to some names vital to my translation of D. Gray-Man, a recent project. Some names are fine, such as Allen becoming Alenus, Moa easily remaining ...
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What is the meaning of Satanas?
Satanas is a name I have encountered on several occasions, such as when hearing of a lost silent movie of this name by F. W. Murnau.
What is the meaning of the as ending in Satanas?
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What is the difference between Iesus and Jesu?
In the Latin version of the Gloria, the name Jesus is rendered as "Domine Fili unigenite Jesu Christe".
However, in the Latin Vulgate, the name of Jesus is rendered as "Iesus". What is the name of ...
