la ̄man da ̄i-, Vedic na ̄ ́ma dha ̄-, Avestan na ̄ma ̨n da ̄-, Greek Zνομα τθεσθαι,
Latinindere nomen, Tocharian A ñom ta ̄-, B ñem ta ̄-, Serbo-Croat ime djesti.^75
Another noteworthy concordance has been observed between the Vedic
phrase priyám
̇
na ̄ ́ma‘dear/favourite name’ (RV 7. 56. 10; 9. 75. 1; 10. 84.
5, 123. 7) and the etymologically identical Old English fre ̄o nama‘surname,
cognomen’. This would appear to have been an Indo-European expression
denoting an additional name chosen to distinguish an individual from
namesakes.^76
Indo-Iranian, Greek, Thracian, Illyrian, Balto-Slavic, Germanic, and Celtic
names are very often two-part compounds, formed in similar ways to the
compound adjectives typical of poetic language. Such names had an intrinsic
element of grandeur, and were evidently characteristic of families and tribes
that aspired to great things. The lexical components from which they are
constructed often reflect the preoccupations of a warrior society.^77 A son’s
name sometimes contained one element taken over from his father’s.^78
The general conservatism of naming traditions may be judged by the
extent to which names in different countries resemble each other in meaning
or actually contain cognate elements. For example, the Avestan name
Nərəmanah- corresponds to the Greek ,Ανδρομνη, and both to the Vedic
epithetnr
̇
mán
̇as-, ‘having the mind of a hero’.^79 Greek ∆ιογνη‘of Zeus’
race’ is paralleled by Gaulish Divogena (CIL xiii. 571), Divvogna (ibid. 10024.
291); the second element also appears in Thracian -zenes, Venetic -genes.^80
Gaulish names in -rix‘king’ can be compared with Indian ones in -ra ̄ja ̄; in
both cases (at any rate until the Roman conquest of Gaul) they were borne
by actual rulers.^81 In Homeric names such as Echekles, Echepolos, Hektor,
the first element, from *seg
h
, originally meaning ‘conquer’, is cognate
with Sig(o)- in Germanic Sigemund, Sigurd, etc. Areïlykos, ‘battle-wolf ’,
(^75) R. Schmitt (as n. 74); Gamkrelidze–Ivanov (1995), 732.
(^76) Schmitt (1967), 184 f. J. Puhvel in Anatolia Antica. Studi in memoria di Fiorella Imparati
(Florence 2002), 671–5, points out that Latin nomen proprium may be another cognate, and he
compares also Hittite sanezzi la ̄man‘sweet name’.
(^77) Cf. Wackernagel (1943), 16; Durante (1962), 40–2; (1976), 102 f. Schramm (1957), 11, after
Eduard Schröder, Deutsche Namenkunde (2nd edn., Göttingen 1944), 8, notes the tendency
for Germanic names to be related to ‘dichterische Ausdrücke für den Fürsten und Krieger’.
Cf. id. 49, 60 f. (Greek, Germanic, Celtic, and Slavic names with ‘-battle’ as the second element);
84 (weapon or armour as second element).
(^78) R. Schmitt (as n. 74), 622, with examples from Avestan, Sarmatian, Thracian, Greek, and
Germanic.
(^79) See Schmitt (1967), 105–8.
(^80) Cf. D. Ellis Evans, Gaulish Personal Names (Oxford 1967), 191–3; Lambert (2003),
129 f.; Lejeune (1974), 96. Compare also Old Irish Sogen (o-stem), corresponding to Sanskrit
sujana-‘good, kind’ (by origin ‘noble, well-born’): J. Uhlich, TPhS 100 (2002), 422.
(^81) Campanile (1977), 79.
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