[HN Gopher] The Origin of Names (2015)
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       The Origin of Names (2015)
        
       Author : diodorus
       Score  : 14 points
       Date   : 2021-01-24 02:42 UTC (20 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (web.pdx.edu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (web.pdx.edu)
        
       | jan_Inkepa wrote:
       | I like names, but this is a very euro-centric. My ideal "let's
       | talk about names" article would cover a lot more different
       | societies and be a bit more universal in its outlook. There's a
       | world of fun stuff with names in Arabic or Japanese, and how
       | various states try to control what people name their kids.
       | 
       | (Saying this, I understand it's a bit shallow to react primarily
       | to an article's title).
       | 
       | >Moreover, at birth human infants are unable to appropriate names
       | for themselves, consequently, another older person must confer a
       | birth name.
       | 
       | There are groups that don't name babies at or near birth (e.g.
       | https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/parents-in-a-remo...
       | leave it for a year, and I can't find a citation but I think I
       | recall some other groups pushing naming even further).
       | 
       | >the nomen, which was a hereditary name (or surname) identifying
       | a person as a member of a distinct gens, i.e., family, tribe, or
       | clan, which constituted an extended Roman family, all members of
       | which shared the same nomen and claimed descent from a common
       | ancestor.
       | 
       | As an aside, if a roman slave was freed, they (at least in some
       | periods) took the praenomen and nomen of their former master. (cf
       | https://latininscriptions.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/resources/resource... .
       | this article also has some details: https://carolashby.com/roman-
       | names/).
       | 
       | Reading the article makes me really want someone to write a
       | "Naming Systems Very Different from Ours" series of articles
       | along the lines of the classic "Legal Systems Very Different from
       | Ours" [
       | http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Legal%20Systems/LegalSystemsCo...
       | ].
        
         | mc32 wrote:
         | Before the advent of modern medicine, not all babies in western
         | societies were not officially named at birth either.
         | 
         | I'm guessing baptisms figured in this too, but maybe who knows
         | more about baptisms can chime in.
        
       | [deleted]
        
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