Theophore name

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A theophorous name (of Greek  θεός theós " God " and φέρειν pherein "bear") is Namenkunde a name that a God name or names of gods contains or - in exceptional cases - a name derived from a name with a gods name or names of gods is. Furthermore, the theophoric names are divided into name forms that contain the name of God (Christian theophoric names) or a god name (pagan theophoric names). Theophoric names often appear in place names and personal names in a language. Occasionally other theophoric proper names appear. There are also theophoric appellatives , e.g. B. Plant names.

Christian and pagan theophoric names

Christian theophoric names are easy to understand because they belong to the Christian era with good historical sources. Pagan theophoric names from a time before Christianization with uncertain sources are less easy to understand, but they usually represent historical sources themselves. Often they are the only source material if the usual historical sources such as contemporary texts or archaeological finds are missing .

Because of their sanctity, names of gods were often viewed as names with special effects. In order to gain this power of the name without violating taboos, children were given theophoric names - name forms combined with a god's name - such as “Servant of God”, “God's grace” or “God's gift”.

Christian personal names can be divided into two groups. The first includes names that are formed in a non-Hebrew language and contain the word for God , in German for example Gottfried , Gottlieb or Gotthilf . The second group includes Biblical names that contain the Hebrew word for God (El) or YHWH , such as Michael , Raphael or John .

Theophore naming

The theophoric naming, the naming according to the literal sense, goes back a long way in history. In Egypt , names from the time between 3000 and 2600 BC are already mentioned in the oldest tradition. Chr. Theophore sentence names strongly represented. They are probably the oldest written testimony of human religiosity. Likewise, theophoric names can be found in the ancient oriental cultures of Mesopotamia .

In Judaism , the transition from individually formed names to name repetition probably took place in the last centuries before our time via theophore names . Theophore names such as Yehoshua (יהושוע "YHWH is salvation", "... help", "... redemption") and John (from יוחנן Jochanan "YHWH is gracious" or "YHWH has shown grace") were already very common at the time of Jesus Christ . After Judaism, Christianity and Islam took over the possibility of theophoric naming. In the Arab region , this can also be proven for the pre-Islamic period. In Islamic culture, theophoric names are very often given to this day, especially the compound words such as Abd al-Rahman ("Servant of the Merciful"), but above all Abdallah himself, from Abd ("Servant"), and one of the 99 names of Allah are very common. In both Judaism and Islam, unlike Christianity, theophore names are reserved for male descendants.

Christianity once took over the theophoric naming not only from Judaism, but also from Greek culture. The theophoric names have been handed down to the Greeks since the sixth century BC, but their theophoric names express a completely different relationship to the gods compared to the ancient oriental “servant of the deity” names. In the Greek names, affiliation to the deity is expressed primarily through suffix formations - such as in Demetrios , Apollonios and Dionysus . Christian theophore names such as Kyriakos and Kyrillos , whose names mean “belonging to the Lord”, or their Latin equivalent, such as Dominicus , adopted this form of name through suffix formation.

Throughout the first millennium, and in some cases far beyond, Christian theophoric names play a major role in the Greek and Romance-speaking areas of the Occident . In addition, names such as Gottfried and Godwin (“God's friend”), Bogislaw (“through God full of glory”) and Bogdan (“God's gift”) can be found in the areas of the Teutonic and Slavic missions . Only when naming after saints had prevailed, the theophore naming tradition was suppressed.

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b Thorsten Andersson :  Theophore names. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 30, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-018385-4 , pp. 442-452.
  2. ↑ a b c d Cf. Michael Mitterauer : Systems of naming in comparison . In: Traditions of naming: onomatology as an interdisciplinary research area . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2011, ISBN = 3-20-578645-9, pp. 31–32.

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