Nomen est omen

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Nomen est omen is a Latin expression and means "the name is a sign". It is mostly used to express that the name aptly describes a person or thing, often exaggerated or broken ironically. For a better understanding it can be freely translated as "The name says it all". The phrase originally comes from the Roman comedy writer Plautus (around 250-184 BC), who used the phrase nomen atque omen (Latin for "name and at the same time also premeaning") in his play Persa ( The Persian ) .

Nomen atque omen was then recognized (or seen through) as magic names by Wilhelm von Ockham “in philosophical nominalism ”. One can perhaps also see the phrase “as the term ontologism of philosophical idealism ”, “to save ideological prelogical belief in the soul and the hereafter as reservatio mentalis or asylum ignorantiae ”. The magic of names is, for example, "still in the naming after the calendar saint ".

Frequent use of the principle that the name stands for the person, made z. B. the creators of Asterix , René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo or the translators who also characterize the person with the name. As examples:

See also

literature

  • The Brockhaus Multimedial 2005 . Bibliographisches Institut & FA Brockhaus, Mannheim 2005, ISBN 3-411-06519-2 .
  • Gisla Gniech: "Nomen atque omen" or "Name is smoke and mirrors ..."? In: Friedhelm Debus, Wilfried Seibicke (Hrsg.): Reader zur onenology (=  German linguistics . Volume 115 to 118). tape 2 : anthroponymy . Olms, Hildesheim / New York NY 1993, ISBN 3-487-09711-7 , pp. 397-410 .
  • Hans Martin Sutermeister: Nomen atque omen: The progress of psychological research and its ideological scope (with special consideration of the neurosis problem) . Friedli, Bern 1943.

Web links

Wiktionary: nomen est omen  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. Hans Martin Sutermeister : Basic concepts in today's psychology . Elfenau, Basel 1976, DNB  201026058 , p. 417 .