Greek Names

Greek personal names are attested in the legal tablets from the city of Uruk, in the Astronomical Diaries, the Babylonian Chronicles, in royal inscriptions, and in documents from the cities of Babylon and Borsippa. After introducing the Greek language and its background, the chapter considers the types of Greek names attested in the cuneiform texts, the lexical items and theophoric elements used to form compounds, and the naming practices. Special attention is devoted to the rendering of Greek names with Babylonian script, especially because of the difficulties and constraints due to the use of a mixed logo-syllabic writing system to express onomastic items originally rendered in an alphabetic script and due to the differences between the Babylonian and Greek phonetic systems. The diffusion of Greek names in Babylonian is linked to the more general matter of the contacts between the Greek world and Mesopotamia, and to the debate on the significance of the Greek presence in Babylonia in the first millennium BCE; the chapter thus concludes – taking into consideration Greek royal names, Greek female names, and double (Greek and Babylonian) names in the sources – with a discussion of the social dimension of the use of Greek names in Babylonian society.