I once asked one of my teachers this exact same question, and the reply was “Yes, and the women of those families sometimes just got feminized versions of the family names”. Unfortunately, no examples of such family names were given.
I am wondering whether my teacher’s claim is true: that Ancient Greek women sometimes carried feminized versions of the family name. I also wonder about what were the Ancient Greek family names, their meanings (if they had any meanings, that is) and whether or not they were hereditary.
I tried to look for this information on the Internet, but to no avail, I was always directed to naming websites and baby names websites.
Maybe a historian can answer the question, but I was under the impression that in most written records, males were addressed by their first name if they were very popular, then by their first name and the city they were from, and if they were young, by their first name and the name of their father.
Women were not a significant part of the society so they were not referred to a lot, but when they did, I can remember only first names mentioned and some times the name of their husband.
The claim that women had a feminized version of their husband’s name may be true. As far as a “family” name though, I think the primary male’s name was used as a family name or a last name as we use it now.
Aristophanes’ play, Lysistrata, is said to be a “feminist” piece of literature, and this claim does have some credibility. I recall that this play is about how some Greek women would refuse to sleep with their husbands until the war is over, so they make a formal oath. I think the play is supposed to be a sex comedy back in the day, but that’s just a way for Aristophanes to say to the audience, “Hey you! Give the women some political power!” If Lysistrata had been male, then her name would have been Lysistratus. It’s too bad that only first names were used; it’s giving me an impression that Greeks don’t have last names altogether!
I do recall reading a Childcraft book, which contains one article about how we get “family names”. The article uses the term, “A long time ago”, but its pictures appear as though the setting is the Middle Ages, giving me an impression that English last names, or European last names in general, first began to take effect in the Middle Ages. Is there any support on this by historians?
Well yes. Look at the broad spectrum of anglo last names, they are commonly derived from occupations or social status: smith, baker, chandler, miller, lord, bishop, clerk/clark, priest, farmer, pope (papist) and so on. Others are from physical characteristics (small, large, bent, longshanks), parentage (johnson, stevenson) or place of origin (Jack London, Sergeant York).
These names tended to settle in around the 15th century in Britain, when for instance John the Butcher became John Butcher.
Going back to ancient Greek names, I was just thinking this morning how there appear to be no duplicates, nor do they seem to originate from any of the obvious name sources I list above. Aristotle, Pericles, Plato, Euripides, Eumenides, Stentor, Euclid, Archimedes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Epicurus, Aristophanes, Sophocles, Aeschylus … some seem to derive from characteristics (indeed may be essentially nicknames rather than given names) such as Sophocles (presumably derived from sophos - wisdom), but I too would be inetrested in a broader discussion of the origins of ancient Greek names. It seems unlikely that each one was created de novo but that is certainly the appearance.
Is Lysistrata considered a name, though? It means “Army-disbander”, according to Wikipedia, so it could just be the title of the play, and something that people in the play refer to her as.
Back to the original question: did the Ancient Greeks have family names? If so, what were they? Can anybody list any examples of family names? Did they have any meanings, and if so, what were they? Were they hereditary like ours?
I remember there is a culture that has a special naming system where every family member of a nuclear-family household has a different last name. The son’s last name depends on the first name of the father. The daughter’s last name may be a feminized version of that. And so on. It must be Iceland or Greenland or the Scandinavian countries; I am not so sure, since the memory is so vague.
I think the short answer to the OP is “It depends”. A large part of that depends upon when and where in Ancient Greece you are referring. One of the reforms of Cleisthenes was the chaging of the tribal system of Athens from three main tribes, to ten. He also distributed each deme (roughly, village) of Attica to one of these tribes. A further reform was the popularization of demonymic (based on your deme) instead of patronymic.
So, after Cleisthenes, I would be called “Outpits of Indianapolis” rather than “Outpits son of Outpitsdad”.
Keep in mind this only looks at one window in time of one region of ancient Greece.
The Romans of the Classical Age did have feminized versions of family names, e.g., Julius Caesar’s daughter Julia, from the Julian house.
In fact, the suffix “-ides” means “son of”. So Euripides, Eumenides, and Thucydides are presumably like Thomason, Richardson and Harrison. Notably, in the Iliad Diomedes is often referred to as Tydides (son of Tydeus).
And there’s at least one case of duplicate names in Greek history: Ajax and Ajax in the Iliad.
It’s worth noting that famous people were often referred to by a pseudonym if their name was too easily confused with another famous person. This was the case with the painter Michelangelo Merisi, who is known today as Caravaggio.
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By the Republican era and throughout the Imperial era, a name in ancient Rome for a male citizen consisted of three parts (tria nomina): praenomen (given name), nomen (or nomen gentile or simply gentilicium, being the name of the gens or clan) and cognomen (name of a family line within the gens). Sometimes a second or third cognomen, called agnomen, was added. The nomen, and later, cognomen were virtually always hereditary. This system was derived from the Etruscan civilization.
Yes, but that’s not a “family name” in that it’s not the name of the family; it helps distinguish this person from other people with the same firstname by telling you their patronimics, but it doesn’t identify the whole family. It’s a name which indicates which relatives this person has, but you can get two Inga Sigurssdottir who are completely unrelated and whose children will not be Sigursdottirs/sens unless the Ingas have kids with Sigurs. It’s a lastname, but… is it a family name?
There were two famous Euclids, the mathematician and a philosopher. There were several famous Demosthenes. I dunno about the others, but I suspect there are probably “repeats” of them as well.