inscriptions as well as in contemporary Greek literature, the Achaemenid Empire's character as a multinational and multilingual state is clearly reflected.
More than 2000 anthroponyms, the great majority (about 90%) being of Iranian origin, are attested in the Elamite texts found in Persepolis (Fortification and Treasury Tablets) and thus come from the center of the empire itself, right where those names were in actual use. As a rule, the Iranian names differ so clearly from the Elamite anthroponyms that they can be assigned to Iranian quite easily. The whole of the evidence is collected and analyzed now in Tavernier (2007). The interpretation of this material with regard to Iranian is somewhat complicated by the all too irregular and superficial representation of the Iranian forms by the Elamite spelling, so that often varying Old Iranian original forms were reconstructed.
Similarly, in Babylonian texts from Achaemenid times, chiefly civil law documents (e.g. contracts and economic texts), a large number of individuals from all levels of Babylonian society (members of the royal house, officials, agents of commercial firms, and even chattel slaves) are attested; most of them bear Babylonian names, but we know also more than 600 Iranian anthroponyms from these sources. To these must be added the names attested in the royal inscriptions and those in astronomical texts. Apart from the usual difficulties caused by the blurred rendering of the Iranian names in Babylonian writing, the linguistic analysis of this material (collected now in Zadok 2009) is hampered by its distribution over the whole of Mesopotamia and of the Achaemenid period. The onomastic data testify by the way to a stronger acculturation of the Iranians there, since many individuals bearing a native Babylonian idionym have an Iranian patronymic or an ethnic indicating Iranian descent.
In the many texts written in Official Aramaic dispersed over the whole empire, among them the hundreds of papyri uncovered in Egypt, apart from Aramaic and other names also a lot of Iranian anthroponyms are attested, which are only in part available in recent compilations (cf. Porten and Lund 2002). Moreover, some books of the Old Testament (written in Hebrew or Aramaic) contain dozens of Iranian names relating to Achaemenid times.
In Achaemenid Asia Minor, Old Iranian personal names are found in Lycian and Lydian inscriptions, not rarely also in Greek ones belonging to that time, whereas the later evidence shows that names originating in the Achaemenid period in some strongly Persianized regions lived on for centuries.
The principal focus of the Greek collateral tradition of Old Iranian anthroponyms is the literature, mainly the historians of the classical period (Herodotus, Thucydides, etc.), and in particular those authors who dealt with the Achaemenid Empire, with the Persian Wars, or the Greeks living in Asia Minor under Achaemenid rule. This material is collected and analyzed now in Schmitt (2011).
Iranian Names
1 Morphology: The system of the formation of personal names in the ancient Iranian languages is in principle the same as in the cognate languages, i.e. it is inherited from Proto‐Indo‐Iranian and Proto‐Indo‐European times. All of the various types of names (single‐stem names, two‐stem compound names, names shortened from compound names, and hypocoristics) are attested in Old Iranian and thus either in Old Persian itself or in the collateral tradition (cf. Schmitt 1995, 2005).
2 Dialectology: The numerous anthroponyms attested in the Elamite‐language corpus of the Persepolis tablets offer a cross‐section (even if not a representative one) of the population, as do in that late period those mentioned in the Babylonian‐language private documents, so that one may recognize people of quite different tribes and nations. But the forms of the names let us also make out features of different Iranian dialects, and rather clearly in cases where pairs of names reflect such divergent phonetic development. It is remarkable that Old Persian forms appear in the Babylonian and Aramaic versions of the royal inscriptions, usually in non‐Persian (probably Median) dialect forms.
Since in the formation of names not only the living and productive vocabulary of the time is used but, owing to the often traditionalist tendency of name‐giving, also archaic and foreign lexemes that in the past had become part of the “onomastic vocabulary,” hybrid formations were possible, too, in which elements of different linguistic (or at least dialectological) origin are joined together.
Particulars
1 Motives for name‐giving: Anthroponyms are not primarily motivated by the lexical meaning of their constituents; insofar they may not be understood as “meaningful” forms. Usually they can be interpreted as wishful names, by which the parents express their hope of strength, wealth, noble‐mindedness, intelligence, or the like for their newborn child. For the motivation of choice, in particular cases the most common procedure is the custom of choosing some name that has already appeared in the father's (or the mother's) family, e.g. by naming the grandson after the grandfather (as in the series of Kuruš–Kambjiya–Kuruš–Kambjiya or Ochus–Arses–Ochus–Arses, if one takes the birth‐names of the kings Darius II, Artaxerxes II and III, and Arses [= Artaxerxes IV?]). A popular means of expressing the family's feeling of belonging together is to form a series of half‐parallel, half‐varying names by repeating one element of the father's name in the sons' names or one and the same element in the names of several brothers. Apart from the family tradition, name‐giving after figures of history, mythology, fable, etc. can be observed. Because of such traditional giving of names one must be cautious about drawing any conclusions from names, e.g. those regarding the parents' religious convictions.
2 Throne‐names: The Achaemenid kings' custom of changing the name at accession to the throne and to take a “throne‐name” or “royal name” instead of the birth‐name or private name is well attested in two independent traditions, viz. in Greek (and Roman) literary sources as well as in Late Babylonian chronicles and astronomical texts, that decisively confirm the literary evidence (cf. Schmitt 1982). Whereas in the official royal inscriptions only the throne‐names appear, collateral tradition informs us about the birth‐names of Artaxerxes I to III and Darius II and III, too. The throne‐names assumed by the newly‐appointed kings express some religious–political program or motto: OPers. Dāraya‐vauš (Darius) “Holding firm/retaining the good”; Xšaya‐r◦šan‐ (Xerxes) “Ruling over heroes”; and R◦ta‐xšaça‐ (Artaxerxes) “Whose rule is through Truth (or sim.).” Since OPers. Dārayavauš is such a throne‐name for certain, but the institution is attested already before Darius II, it seems to be obvious to postulate a throne‐name already for Darius I (cf. Schmitt 1982: p. 93 = Schmitt 2000: 172f.). That the institution of throne‐names actually began just with this king, who came to the throne not by normal succession, may be combined with the apparent break in the tradition of royal names just here, when the series of etymologically unclear and disputed names like Cišpiš, Kuruš, and Kambjiya is followed by those fully transparent programmatic throne‐names.
3 Onomastic and prosopographical identity: Since the evidence of Old Persian anthroponyms in genuine sources is rather limited and the wealth of material preserved in the collateral traditions often is not rendered accurately enough, it is important to join together for each single name all the material which eventually belongs together, in order to find out the original form (or forms) as exactly as possible. It is known that in particular the transcriptions in Mesopotamian cuneiform (i.e. in the Elamite and Babylonian languages) are not very precise, as we see, e.g., from the countless spelling variations mainly of the royal names (in the case of Darius more than 100). In general, one has to compare all the attested forms down to the last detail, because not rarely variant forms, e.g. a two‐stem compound name and a shortened form or an allegro form, appear next to each other (cf. four‐syllable OPers. Xšaya‐r◦šā vs. two‐syllable Gk. Ξέρξης).
Apart from the royal names and from the inscriptions recorded in several versions, the first question to be asked in such cases often is simply whether we have to do actually with one and the same name at all.
