Onomastic information confirms the supposition that the first Christians were not much concerned with this problem. suffice it to say that among those mentioned in the acts of the apostles and in their letters we find baptized men and women bearing names of pagan gods or their derivatives: apollos (i Corinthians, 16.12), Epaphroditus (Philippians, 14.18), Hermes (Romans, 16.14), Phoebe (Romans 16.11). these data are corroborated by the inscriptions from the Roman catacombs where, among others, we find Christians called apollo, Bachus, saturnus but hardly ever bearing a name which we would qualify as Christian.5 no change of name appears to have been required then of an adult undergoing baptism (whereas baptism of infants was only coming into practice).
it became a custom somewhat later, from the 3rd century onwards. the new name began to be regarded as a sign of spiritual rebirth, an idea which was supported by the story of the conversion of apostle Peter (Mt 16.17-18, Jo 1.42), also by the generally accepted interpretation of the less transparent story of saul becoming apostle Paul (act 13.9). a change of name was considered by many ancient societies as a symbolic act of assuming a new identity; a trace of it can be found in the Old testament narrative about abraham and sarah (gen 17.5 and 17.15) which no doubt also influenced early Christians.
However no rules as to which names were fit for a Christian yet existed. as far as the surviving sources (inscriptions, lists of martyrs, texts of the Fathers) allow us to generalize we can draw the conclusion that until the end of the 4th century these were usually not new testament names. strangely enough, for a while Old testament names, such as Daniel, Moyses or tobias, were relatively more popular. However step by step the names of martyrs prevailed,6 and as they were recruited from practically all ethnic
4. Victor Saxer, Les rites de l’initiation chrétienne du ii au vi siècle, Fondazione CisaM, spoleto, 1988, p. 384- 385, 401-416, 514-521; Everett ferguSon, Baptism in the Early Church..., p. 772-774. see also: Jean-Philippe revel, Traités des sacraments. Vol. I. Baptême et sacramentalité, t. i-ii, Cerf, Paris, 2004-2005.
5. iiro KaJanTo, Onomastic Studies in the Early Christian Inscriptions of Roma and Carthage, tilgman, Helsinki, 1963; Heikki Solin, Problèmes de l’onomastique du Bas Empire. Le monde romain à travers l’épigraphie : méthode et pratique, Ed. J. Desmulliez, lille, 2005, p. 271-293.
6. Hippolyte delehaye, Les origines du culte des martyres, Cult Publisher, Bruxelles, 1912, p. 164; Henri leclercq, “noms propres”...
62
groups to be found in the Roman empire we are faced with a growing variety of the early Christian name-stock.
the early Christians also invented new names emphasizing moral qualities, with transparent religious connotations, often stressing the person’s alleged chastity and humil- ity: Clement (already in the 1st c.), innocentius, Pius, Prudentius, Rusticus, simplicius, Virginia... they also took for names words which signified the rites, feasts and virtues of their religion or simply notions dear to them. among them we find agapet, ambrosius, anastasius, Benedictus, Bonifatius, Epifanius, Eulogia, Fides, Martyrius, Pascasia, Re- demptus, Restituta, sabbatius. some names, such as Donatus, ignatius or natalis were rather allusions or even hints to their faith. subsequently some of the people bearing such names — for example Epiphanius, bishop of the Cypriot town of salamis (d. 403) and Epiphanius of Pavia (d. 496) — were recognized as saints so that the name became truly Christian.
in the course of the Middle ages some new names of this kind were forged, Dominicus and Osanna7 being perhaps the best examples, but in general this manner of creating names suffered a certain setback. it regained popularity in the Early Modern period, at least in some countries belonging to the Western Christian tradition. thus, spain accepted still more names derived from religious notions or associations; for reasons yet to be explained these are mainly female names: ascensión, asunción, Concepción, Dolores, immaculada, Mercedes, trinidad... names of this type, though on a smaller scale, are popular also in italy: assunta, Concetta, etc. some French names, such as noel and toussaint, come to the mind as well. to my knowledge no person bearing one of these names was ever venerated as a saint though of course this can happen in the future — as it happened with angela Merici, the founder of the Order of Ursulines, died in 1540 and canonized in 1807, or with Virginia Centurione Bracelli, a noblewoman from genoa, died in 1651 and canonized in 2003. a likely candidate is Dolores Rodriguez sopeña (d. 1918), a pious spanish woman renown for her assistance to the poor. true, since in Modern times it was common practice among Catholics to give a child more than one name the fact that, let us say, Concetta, is not a saint’s name turned out to be not so important after all.
going back to late antiquity we should state that not later than the first half of the 3rd century, another group of Christian names came to life — theophoric (“deity bearing”) names created from Hebrew, greek or latin roots, one of them being the word “god” or its substitutes. the earliest theophoric names used by Christians are of Hebrew origin, for example Emmanuel (“god with us”) and nathanael (“god has given”), others — such as thimotheos, the name of the apostle’s addressee, which is often interpreted as “fearing god” but which actually means “honoring god” — seem to be pagan. However most of the Christian theophoric names were in fact inventions
7. Both names are registered already in the Carolingian polyptyques of saint-Victor-de-Marseille, saint- germain-des-Prés and saint-Remi-de Reims. see: Marie-thérèse MorleT, Les noms des personnes sur le territoire de l’ancienne Gaule du vi au xii siècle, vol. ii, CnRs, Paris, 1972, p. 42, 86.
63
of Christians themselves. among them we find greek names such as theodore (“gift of god”), Dorotheus (“gift to god”), theodosius (“god given”; it may have been a translation of the Hebrew name nathanael), theophilus (“loving god”), theophanes (“manifestation of god”), and their female analogues: theodora, Dorothea, etc. Other names of this type include Christianus, Christina and Christophorus, both attested already in the first half of the 3rd c. later on latin versions of these names were forged, such as amadeus and Deusdat. We find also brand new latin theophoric names of which Quodvultusdeus is probably the most spectacular.
in the course of the 3rd and especially of the 4th centuries new testament names
— John, Peter, Paul, andrew, Philip, stephen, Mary, among others — finally found their way into the Christian community. true, some of them, like Paul and Philip, may not necessarily be connected with the Christian cult but others usually are. at this point if not earlier a custom began to be formed at baptism to accept the name of a martyr or of some other holy person. a certain Mary accepted martyrdom in Rome in 256. Eusebius of Caesarea (d. 339) is known to have taken the name Pamphilus, a friend and a martyr whom he particularly revered. Citing Dionysius of alexandria (d. 265) he reports that
“there were many of the same name as the apostle John who on account of their love for him, and because they admired and emulated him, and desired to be loved by the lord as he was, took to themselves the same name, just as many of the children of the faithful are called Paul or Peter”.8 likewise, John Chrysostom (d. 407) admonished his flock not to call their children by the first name which occurs to them, nor to give them the names of their ancestors or other relatives but rather the names of holy men renown for their virtue and for their courage before god.9
there were of course not only chronological but also regional differences in this respect. thus in Rome there was a preference for biblical names whereas in Carthage theophoric names were in favor.10 in the greek part of the empire new testament names seem to have become popular earlier than in the latin part. However, regardless of ge- ography, up to the end of the 5th c. Christian names or, to be more accurate, names one way or another connected with the Christian religion, constitute not more than 10-15%
of all registered names.11
it is clear that a Christian name was often not the only name a Christian had. How could have indeed a Roman citizen renounced his official triple name? it should not come as a surprise then that late ancient sources (mainly inscriptions) make reference to compound names such as “severus by the name Pascasius”.12 the polyethnicity of
8. Eusebius paMphiluS, Historia ecclesiastica, Vii, 25.
9. John chrySoSToM, Homilia, liii, 179.
10. andré Mandouze (dir.), Prosopographie de l’Afrique chrétienne (303-533), Editions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique Paris, 1982; Charles pieTri, luce pieTri (dirs.), Prosopographie de l’Italie chrétienne (313-604), t. i-ii, Ecole française de Rome, Rome, 1999-2000.
11. stephen wilSon, The Means..., p. 61.
12. Jos JanSSenS, Vita e morte del christiano negli epitaffi di Roma anteriori al secolo vii, Pontificia Univ.
gregoriana, Roma, 1981, p. 29. citing: iCUR, ns, Vi, 15895: natu Severus nomine Pascasius.
64
the Roman world have also urged many Christians to bear more than one name, one of the religious arguments being the double name of Marc the Evangelist whose Hebrew name was John (act 12.25, 15.37). a Christian name was rather for use in a smaller circle of people, mainly that of co-believers. according to the Passio of saint Balsam, a Palestinian martyr who perished in 311, Balsam (probably a version of the Hebrew name absalom) was his “paternal” name whereas his spiritual name received at baptism was Peter.13 it is symptomatic that only very few Roman noblemen of the Christian period are known to us by their Christian names. likewise the Christian name is hardly ever present among the multiple official names of the late Roman emperors. theodosius be- ing at the time no more than a pious name, the most evident exception is probably the emperor Flavius Johannes (423-425), an usurper.
gradually, the stock of baptismal names grew as more and more ethnic groups accepted Christianity and some of their representatives were acknowledged the status of a saint. this process started already in antiquity and continued in later times with the result that numerous pagan names of Celtic, germanic, slavic and other “barbaric”
origin eventually came to be regarded as true Christian names. genevieve of Paris (b. ca.
422) is an early example. We need not enter now the fascinating domain of these names’
semantics for it is practically irrelevant to the subject of this article but it is probably worthwhile to mention that some of these new names were also theophoric but of pagan origin and initially referring to a pagan deity. this is the case of Oswald — the name of the northumbrian king (d. 642) who was later venerated as a saint — for “os” is one of the germanic words for “god”; his name can be interpreted as “god’s rule”. less clear is the case of the name gottfried (“god’s peace”), attested in Bavaria and in the region of ardennes not later than mid 7th c.;14 it could be rooted in both pagan and Christian culture; the first saint to bear this name or rather its French version — godefroy of amiens — died in 1115. godwin (“god’s friend”, a rather evident calque of the latin Amicus Dei) is of obvious Christian provenance; an abbot of that name from the monastery stavelot in today’s Belgium (d. 690) is recognized as saint by the Church. later names of this type such as gotthard and godric also have clear Christian allusions; they were popular, respectively, in germany and England, thanks to gotthard of Hildesheim (d.
1038) and godric of Finchale (d. 1170), a hermit acknowledged as saint though actually never canonized. still later, we find germanic and slavic remakes of theophoric greek and Roman names; gottlieb (“loving god”), Bogumil (“dear to god”) and Bogdan (“gift of god”) may serve as examples. gottlieb seems to be an early Modern creation.15 Bogumil
13. acta sancti Petri Balsami ab anastasio bibliothecario. aass. ian. i. P. 129: “In illo tempore Petrus, qui et Balsamus, cum comprehensus fuisset apud Aulanam civitatem tempore persecutionis, cum esset oriundus a finibus Eleutheropolitanae civitatis, oblatus est Seuero Praesidi. Seuerus dixit ad eum: Quis diceris? Petrus respondit: Nomine paterno Balsamus dicor; spirituali vero nomine, quod in baptismo accepi, Petrus dicor”.
14. Marie-thérèse MorleT, Les noms des personnes..., vol. i, p. 112.
15. Hans bahlow, Unsere Vorname im Wandel der Jahrhunderte, limburg an der lahn, starke, 1965, p. 40.
65
appears in Poland already in the 11th c.16 Bogdan, as far as i know, is attested for the first time in a 1229 graffito from galich (south-West Rus, now Ukraine)17 and was quite popular already in the Middle ages, including the elite. it was for instance, born in the 14th -16th c. by several princes of Moldavia which is interesting in its own way because the language these princes spoke was Rumanian and not slavic. new theophoric names sprung up also in the Romanic milieu. Of these salvator is no doubt the most impres- sive. it owes it’s origin to the cathedral of Oviedo dedicated since about 802 to saint saviour, perhaps also to the monastery of saint saviour in leyre (navarra) known to have existed at least from 842. the name is registered on the iberian Peninsula starting from the late 9th c., in gaule — from the beginning of the 10th c.18
a few words about the fate of the Old testament names which were, as was shown, much in use among the early Christians. in the Middle ages the names of some of the revered characters of the Old testament, mainly those mentioned also in the gospels, were also accepted as proper Christian names, especially in the Celtic and the Eastern churches. Mostly these were the names of the patriarchs and the prophets but there are unexpected exceptions. thus, we know of a certain ithamar, the bishop of Rochester (644-657/664), the first anglo-saxon to hold an episcopal post; his name, extremely rare among Christians, is that of the youngest son of aaron the levite, the brother of Moses (Jos 24.33).19 in the course of the Middle ages many Old testament names, including those never born by a saint, found their way into the Christian community. they were quite popular among the clergy, both in the West and especially in the East, but laymen used them as well. Here are a few examples from early medieval France. We find a Moses and an abel in Carolingian Burgundy,20 a David, a Jordan and a Heliseus, also laymen as it appears, in auvergne of roughly the same time,21 an isaia and a Joseph in the region of Reims,22 an adam, an Elias, a Joshua and a solomon in 10th c. languedoc,23 an israel in 10th c. Poitou,24 an abraham and an adam in the same region somewhat
16. Wilhelm arndT, Ryszard roepell (eds.), annales Cracovienses vetusti, MgH, ss, t. 19, Hanoverae, 1866, a. 1092: “Bogumilus archiepiscopus obiit”.
17. Татьяна Всеволодовна Рождественская, Древнерусская эпиграфика x-xv веков, сПБ, 1991, c. 94.
18. Jordi boloS, Josep Moran, Repertori d’Antropònims catalans. Vol. i, institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona, 1994, p. 473; Eugène gerMer-durand (eds.), Cartulaire du chapitre de l’église cathédrale Notre Dame de Nîmes (834- 1156), nîmes, 1874, nº 10 (a. 905).
19. Beda venerabiliS, Historia ecclesiastica, iii, 14: “Ithamar, oriundum quidem de gente Cantuariorum...”;
Richard Sharpe, “the naming of Bishop ithamar”, English Historical Review, 117/473, (Oxford, 2002), p. 889-894.
20. Robert Folz (ed.), Chartes et cartulaire de Saint-Bénigne de Dijon, t. i. (vi-x siècles). Dijon, 1986, nº 108 (a. 878-879); auguste bernard, alexandre bruel (eds.), Recueil des chartes de l’abbaye de Cluny, vol. i-Vi, Paris, 1876-1903, nº 47 (a. 892).
21. Henry doniol (ed.), Cartulaire de Brioude (Liber de honoribus Sancto Juliano collatis), Clermont-Ferrand, 1863, nº245 (a. 895), 282 (a. 858); Henry doniol (ed.), Cartulaire de sauxillanges, Clermont-Ferrand, 1864, nº35 (a.
954-986).
22. Benjamin guérard, Polyptyque de l’abbaye de Saint-Remi de Reims, Paris, 1853, XVii, 59; XXi, 5.
23. Eugène gerMer-durand (eds.), Cartulaire du chapitre..., nº XXXiV (a. 928), XXX (a. 927), i (a. 876), XX (a. 921).
24. François-Xavier rédeT (ed.), Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Saint-Cyprien de Poitiers, Poitiers, 1874, nº 114 (ca. 970), 130 (a. 963-975).
66
later...25 the list could be easily extended but it’s more important to note that this fashion affected different strata of the society. thus, the name Manasses was popular in the 9-10th centuries among the counts of Dijon, langres and Rethel.26 in the Eastern Christian world the most notorious case is no doubt that of the four brothers who semi-officially ruled Bulgaria from 971 onwards: their names were David, Moses, aaron and samuel.27
Considerably more numerous were of course such Old testament names which in medieval times became the names of saints, sometimes with very significant consequences for the name-stock of certain countries or regions. thus, the great popularity of the name David in the Celtic world had little to do with the biblical king; it was the result of the cult of saint David, the abbot of Minevia (d. 589), perceived later as the patron of Wales. sometimes we can’t be sure whether a person carrying an Old testament name was called in honor of a biblical character or a later saint of the same name. this is, for example, the case of isaac, the name not only of the biblical patriarch but also of two important saints — isaac of Dalmatia (d. 383) and isaac of syria (d. about 700). it was quite popular among the Byzantine elite in the 11th and 12th centuries (there were even two emperors of the period called issac, a Komnenos and an angelos) and not unknown in the West of roughly the same age.28
2. Eastern and Western understanding of what is a Christian name