Questions tagged [names]
Questions related to the history of terms used for identification, for people, places, things, concepts, times or ages, events, professions, systems, sciences, or any other real or imaginary items which have been or can be identified with identifying terminology.
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What is the highest generational suffix ever used in the United States?
I am hoping to learn more about suffix use in the United States. I am the Ninth (IX), my father was the Eighth (VIII), and so on. I was wondering if anyone knew for sure if there was a higher number ...
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Are there examples of restored monarchies with discontinued King namings? [closed]
I have deleted my previous question. It seemed it has many answers in UK history.
so I am asking a new one. Are there restored monarchies with discontinued king namings?
For example, imagine we have a ...
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Why are Ukranian town and city names so (relatively) repetitive?
I've been browsing the map of Eastern and Southern Ukraine over the recent couple of years (looking at where the war is being conducted), and I noticed a very high rate of name repetition: There are ...
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What does 145 mean in "Tsuu T'ina 145"?
"Tsuu T'ina Nation 145 is an Indian reserve of the Tsuut'ina Nation in southern Alberta, Canada."
What does 145 stand for in "Tsuu T'ina 145"? I understand "Tsuu T'ina" ...
MCW♦
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When did people stop translating their names when moving from one country to another?
I was interested in the process of people changing their names from one language to another. Most monarchs have a different given name in different languages. However, this phenomenon also applied to ...
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What were the names of Amerigo Vespucci's ships?
What were the names of the ships that Amerigo Vespucci used during his exploratory cruises?
He was Italian; the American continent was named after him.
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Why didn't a noble family change their last name from a kind of duck to something more prestigious?
Several days ago, I got curious about the last name of Nikolai Gogol. It just seemed not Slavic to me to be the last name of a Russian/Ukrainian author.
I searched for his father on Wikipedia:
He was ...
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Why did Peter the Great name Saint Petersburg, Russia with a foreign styled name?
When Peter the Great of Russia established Saint Petersburg he originally called it Sankt-Pieter-Burch (Сан(к)т-Питер-Бурхъ) in Dutch manner. Later, under apparent German influence it was changed to ...
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Greek names of cities of Persia
I know that some cities and places in Iran and Afghanistan have historical Greek names. Like Persepolis. Where can I find those names and their meanings?
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When did the Roman Empire fall according to contemporaries?
The Roman Empire divided itself into two parts, the Eastern Roman Empire headquartered in Constantinople and the Western Roman Empire headquartered in Rome. The city of Rome itself fell in the year ...
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Is there any documented evidence that these three North American cities were named due to the locations of their namesakes?
Two years ago, I was studying an online atlas of the world and I happened to notice that there are three cities located in North America which have a geographical similarity with three cities located ...
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Is there an example from Classical antiquity of mixing up cities based on their names?
Is there an example from Classical antiquity of mixing up cities based on their names? Say, an army landed at the wrong town, or a traveler gave wrong directions, based on the names. That last part is ...
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What was the process used to decide on the name of the US capital, Washington DC?
I'm interested in learning about the history behind the naming of the United States capital, Washington DC. Why was it named after George Washington, and who made the decision to name it after him?
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What was Iceland officially & commonly called before 1918 (1874~)?
In 1918, The Kingdom of Iceland was founded. In 1944, it changed to just Iceland.
I have researched about what Iceland was originally called, and apparently, it's first name was given to the person ...
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Why didn't the Catholic Church invent new names for the classical planets? [closed]
The Roman Catholic Church had a strong policy of changing or destroying pagan names or other references from several things. Why they didn't rename the classical planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter ...
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What's the first mention of امّان and سومالی in Persian texts?
I am Iranian. As you know the country has been influenced very much by Islam and Arabic language since the conquer of Sassanid Empire by Muslim Arabs. Even the Persian alphabet wasn't prone to the ...
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Did enslaved persons take their owner's surnames?
My last name is Stokes. And I've noticed that there is a large amount of African Americans that have the same last name. Years ago I watched a documentary that mentioned that usually slaves would take ...
MCW♦
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When did the United Kingdom become "United" rather than merely united? (I.e., that word became part of its name.)
In 1707 the two British kingdoms of England and Scotland became one kingdom.
I naively thought that that was when the name "United Kingdom" first came to be used as the proper official name ...
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Was Wahshi Wahshi ibn Harb's real name?
I was reading the Wikipedia article for Wahshi ibn Harb.
Wahshi ibn Harb ("The Savage, Son of War"), also known as Abu Dusmah was a former slave of Jubayr ibn Mut'im before becoming a ...
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What was the name of Captain Kidd's ship?
To be precise, what was the name of Captain William Kidd's ship which he commanded in his ill-fated voyage from England to hunt pirates in the Indian Ocean?
The name is given in many modern sources ...
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When did "JFK" become a recognizable initialism for John F. Kennedy?
I assume that by the time he ran for President in 1960, every newspaper reader would have recognized the initialism "JFK" as a reference to John Fitzgerald Kennedy. But what about in 1957, ...
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Why did Constantius Chlorus decide to become a Flavius?
I have noticed that virtually all Roman emperors after Constantine were called Flavius Something. A quick lookup in wikipedia confirms this and even more:
During the later period of the Empire, the ...
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Is this name transcribed correctly from cursive writing from 1866?
I am trying to transcribe a list of names which were written by a child, in cursive, in 1866 (in the US). A few of the letters are unclear to me, especially capitals. Thanks to a few early commenter,...
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What is the difference between Anatolia and Asia Minor?
Is there a strict geographical definition on those names from a historian's point of view? Are there differences between the geographic definition e.g. is upper Mesopotamia included/excluded? I have ...
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Where does the name 'D-Day' come from?
What is the significance of the name D-Day? My whole life I thought it was a 4 day plan, starting with A-Day, then B-Day, C-Day and finally D-Day.
I just learned that in French, it's referred to as... ...
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What is the longest name chain?
I’m talking about when a family names a son after their father, and that son names a son after himself, and so on.
For example, the King Louis’ (although they weren’t always a son, but they were ...
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Why was Adolphus Dolo nicknamed "Gen. Peanut Butter"?
According to Pro Publica
Adolphus Dolo, better known as Gen. Peanut Butter [...] was infamous for recruiting child soldiers.
However not much in the way of explanation is provided for his peculiar ...
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Giving a child to Thor
In Chapter 7 of Eyrbyggja saga we are told how Thorolf, the first gođi of Thorsness pledged his child to Thor:
Thorolf Most-beard married in his old age, and had to wife her who is called Unn; some ...
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Was "The war to end all wars" viewed as cynically during WW1 as it is today?
I was watching Wonder Woman and noticed that it had been shifted from her typical origin story of being found by a WW2 fighter pilot to being found by a WW1 spy. Chris Pine called WW1 the war to end ...
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How did Hawai'ian surnames work during Kamehameha's Act to Regulate Names?
I was wondering how family names were inherited during the Act to Regulate Names in Hawai'i. There's some conflicting info: some sources seem to say that the given name of the father of the person in ...
HopefulAlexander
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Can anyone help identify the name of the white vessel in this photo w/the masts and funnel?
Unidentified White hulled vessel, possibly in the Boston area in the 1940s. The harbor tug is named IWANA and it was in service in Boston up until 1942. What is the name of the mystery white vessel? I’...
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Were the names in 'Les Miserables' ever common?
Victor Hugo used a variety of unusual names in 'Les Miserables'. Lets look at some of the major characters. Were the names in Les Miserables, other than Jean and Marius, common in France at the time ...
CommunityBot
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Why was the king of Judah referred to as "the king of the House-of-David"?
In the famous Tel Dan Stele it says, likely in the name of Hazael, king of Aram:
"… קתלת.אית.יהו[רם].בר [אחאב.]מלך.ישראל.וקתל[ת.אית.אחז]יהו.בר[.יהורם.מל]ך.ביתדוד …"
"… killed Jeho[ram]...
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What honorifics and forms of address were appropriate for 17th century Spanish nobility?
My world has a country that is based in quite a few regards on Spain during the 17th/18th century. I would like the readers to feel the honor and prestige of that culture by accurately mimicking ...
MCW♦
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Are there any surviving historical written records about Black individuals in Sub-Saharan African languages?
In the modern world there are many famous Black people. However which names can we name prior to 1500?
There were ethnically Hellenic thinkers and politicians based in North Africa as well as native ...
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Are there any in-depth accounts on the history of the so-called 'city name statues' phenomenon?
A few years ago, Amsterdam had a big collection of statues consisting of letters that spelled 'I amsterdam':
The letters were removed because a majority the city council associated them with ...
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What was Sir John Mandeville's source regarding Beersheba and its chronology?
After men have crossed this desert on the way to Jerusalem, they come to a city which is called Bersabee [Beersheba] which was once a fine city in habited by Christian men, and still there are some of ...
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Did all the the -stan sovereign state names appear synchronously?
-stan is a Persian suffix that seems functionally equivalent to the Germanic -land.
Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan are the sovereign -stan states.
...
MCW♦
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Who was the US town Hayden in Arizona named after?
Is the town Hayden, AZ named after Charles Hayden?
Charles Hayden was the principal of Stone & Hayden, which owned the Kennecott mines. Hayden AZ was founded in 1911 according to the Wikipedia ...
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Did Martin Luther King, Sr. change his name as an allusion to the Semitic root M-L-K?
Martin Luther King, Sr. was given the name Michael King at birth. Shortly after touring the Holy Land, he changed his name to Michael Luther King, and then to Martin Luther King. (This source seems to ...
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Why was Edward I of England the first Edward?
Why is Edward I of England given the numeration "I", when he was preceded by Edward the Confessor and Edward the Martyr. Did numerations only begin with William I?
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What is the earliest recorded female name in history?
There is already a question that gives various possibilities for the first name that we have record of in Who is the earliest recorded person?, but most seem to be male figures. What is the first ...
CommunityBot
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Why no Holy Roman Emperor ever accepted a name, coinciding with a name of a Roman Emperor? [closed]
For instance, no Holy Roman Emperor was named Constantine, or Alexander etc. On the other hand, many Byzantine emperors had names of previous Roman emperors (Constantine, Theodosios, Tiberios, ...
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Why were so many female members of Hapsburg family named Maria something?
Recently, I have noticed that Empress Maria Theresa’s daughters’ names all begin with Maria.
Archduchess Maria Elisabeth
Archduchess Maria Anna
Archduchess Maria Carolina
Maria Christina, Duchess of ...
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Which culture used no personal names?
The blog post Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names – With Examples claims that:
There was an isolated culture in which
no one had names – they referred to everyone in relative terms, such
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Did religious names catch on before or after the use of last names?
Last names are interesting. Once upon a time, people had only first names, until growing populations and ostentatious royals started a trend of including a second name, most commonly either patronymic ...
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Why did the term "Byzantine Empire" enter common usage instead of "Eastern Roman Empire" or "Roman Empire"
Why did the term "Byzantine Empire" enter common usage instead of "Eastern Roman Empire" or "Roman Empire"? (or Imperium Graecorum?)
Wikipedia says that the term Byzantine wasn't used until 1557, and ...
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What was the Tang Dynasty definition of imperial 嫡子?
The distinction between 嫡子 and 庶子 was supposedly crucial in struggles for the Chinese imperial throne. It is often repeated (example) that only sons of the Empress were considered 嫡子。
Here it is ...
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Was Vespucci born as Amerigo?
In a youtube video, it is stated that Vespucci's original first name was "Alberto". The name by which he is popularly known, "Amerigo", was only assigned to him after reaching the ...
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Was the name 'Valerie' used during the Regency Era (1811-1836)?
I am working on a novel that takes place in England during the Regency Era (1811-1836, the era right before the Victorian Era). I was wondering if you know if the name 'Valerie' or 'Valeria' existed ...
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