# What's your Renaissance humanist name?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [August 28, 2022, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471 "2022-08-28T15:17:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/1 "2022-08-28T15:17:20Z")

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Now that it’s back-to-school time, let’s rev up our intellects with a fun quest.

Everybody’s heard of the Mercator Projection. How Mercator got that name: When Western Europeans revived Classical learning in the Renaissance, many humanists in the north liked to demonstrate their erudition by translating their Germanic names into Greek or Latin. For example:

Into Greek:  
[Acontius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melchior_Acontius) \< Volz (bolt/dart)  
[Bibliander](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Bibliander) \< Buchmann (bookman)  
[Capnion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Reuchlin) \< Reuchlin (little smoke)  
[Cochlaeus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Cochlaeus) \< Wendelstein (Wendel = spiral)  
[Crotus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Crotus) \< Jäger (archer/hunter)  
[Erastus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Erastus) \< Lieber (lovable)  
[Hylacomylus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Waldseem%C3%BCller) \< Waldseemüller (woods + miller)  
[Irenicus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franciscus_Irenicus) \< Friedlieb (peaceloving)  
[Lycosthenes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Lycosthenes) \< Wolffhart (strong like a wolf)  
[Macropedius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macropedius) \< Lanckvelt (long field)  
[Magirus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Magirus_the_elder) \< Koch (cook)  
[Melanchthon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Melanchthon) \< Schwartzerdt (black earth)  
[Oecolampadius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Oecolampadius) \< Hausschein (house lamp)  
[Oporinus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Oporinus) \< Herbster (autumn fruit picker [harvester])

Latin  
[Agricola](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgius_Agricola) \< Bauer (farmer)  
[Apianus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrus_Apianus) \< Bienewitz (Biene = bee)  
[Aurifaber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurifaber) \< Goldschmidt (goldsmith)  
[Brassicanus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Brassicanus) \< Köll (cabbage)  
[Camerarius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camerarius) \< Kammermeister (chamberlain)  
[Candidus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantaleon_Candidus) \< Weiss (white)  
[Cornarius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_Cornarius) \< Hainpol (cornel/rosehip)  
[Corvinus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurentius_Corvinus) \< Rabe or [Ravens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Arnoldi_Corvinus) (raven)  
[Luscinius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottmar_Luscinius) \< Nachtgall (nightingale)  
[Mercator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerardus_Mercator) \< Kremer (merchant)  
[Musculus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Musculus) \< Meusel (small mouse)  
[Nauclerus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Nauclerus) \< Vergenhans (skipper/ferryman)  
[Piscator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Piscator) \< Fischer or [Visscher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claes_Jansz._Visscher) (fisher)  
[Plancius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrus_Plancius) \< Platevoet (flat foot)  
[Praetorius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praetorius) \< Schulze (mayor)  
[Regiomontanus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regiomontanus) \< Königsberg (king’s mountain)  
[Taurellus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Taurellus) \< Öchslin (small ox)  
[Versor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Versor) \< Letourneur (the lathe operator) (the only non-Germanic example)  
[Ursinus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Heinrich_Ursinus) \< Baer (bear)

So have a go at translating your own name into Greek or Latin! The handiest resource of all is [**Wiktionary**](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page). Its translation resources are deep and wide. You can find the meaning of a name in German, Dutch, or other language and translate that into Ancient Greek or Latin. There are also [Woodhouse: English-Greek Dictionary](https://web.archive.org/web/20130320124722/http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/Woodhouse/)  
[Edwards, An English-Greek Lexicon](https://web.archive.org/web/20130320124722/http://www.ancientlibrary.com/eng-grk/)  
[Latin Dictionary Headword Search Results](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/resolveform?lang=Latin)  
[Free English-Latin dictionary and translator - FREELANG](http://www.freelang.net/dictionary/latin.php)

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**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/2 "2022-08-28T16:04:41Z")

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Polemistárktos Themélia

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/3 "2022-08-28T16:20:58Z")

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Applause! What could be more fearsome than a warfighting bear? Fundamentally.

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/4 "2022-08-28T16:34:33Z")

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I’d like to illustrate with my own name, except my Sicilian surname is already Greek, so there’s nothing to translate. Instead, I have to go back over 200 years to find my only ancestors with a German name, the Wagners.

Wagner means a wagon maker or wheelwright. Greek for wagon is ἅμαξα _hamaxa_, and maker/worker/fabricator is _-urge_, as in “dramaturge.” So if I’d been descended from old Wagner’s son instead of his daughter, my Renaissance humanist name might have been Ἁμαξουργή [Hamaxurge](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B1%CE%BC%CE%B1%CE%BE%CE%BF%CF%85%CF%81%CE%B3%CF%8C%CF%82#Greek).

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**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/5 "2022-08-28T16:52:59Z")

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Translation to Greek - Tolmirá. If it’s a Renaissance name, wouldn’t it be a single name?

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**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/6 "2022-08-28T16:56:33Z")

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Our family name doesn’t come up in Wiktionary. It means a farmer who works with horse teams, or more briefly perhaps, a horse farmer, and that would be equus agricola in Latin. That should really be combined into one word. Maybe equicola would do. Sounds like an equal opportunity soft drink.

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**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/7 "2022-08-28T17:18:32Z")

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Wiktionary derives Susan from words meaning “sesame” (though Susan and Suzanne currently mean “lily” and as I understand it derive from a Semitic flower name meaning “rose”–I suppose the origin of “sesame” may be a cognate or the source for several plant names). My surname has an unknown meaning, but historically I wouldn’t have had a family name anyway. So Σουσάμι Εβραίος (Susan the Jew, probably needs the feminine suffix) or Σουσάμι daughter of somebody, or Σουσάμι The Righteous/Beautiful/Goatherd, etc.

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**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/8 "2022-08-28T17:24:13Z")

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My real name is one word, consisting of two meaning (“rabbit home”) and these are apparently, in Greek,

κουνέλι σπίτι

Can these be combined into one word that’s more name-like?

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**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/9 "2022-08-28T18:05:18Z")

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Marcus Forticulus is as close as I can get to Latinizing my first and last names.

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**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/10 "2022-08-28T18:14:48Z")

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In Latin, Johnny Bravo would be something like **Ioannes Barbarus**.

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**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/11 "2022-08-28T18:30:22Z")

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Carolus Lignumlata or latasilva depending on if I capitolize it in english according to google translate for latin  
Karolos Fardyxylo for the greek

I couldn’t get any of the links provided to work, the first three just returned no results, not sure what I was doing wrong and the last one seems to want me to download and install something first.

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**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/12 "2022-08-28T18:37:26Z")

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Τρίτη Σουηδός

Triti Souidiós

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**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/13 "2022-08-28T20:44:22Z")

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My family name means Angry Man of the Black Forest.  
Allegedly.

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**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/14 "2022-08-28T20:56:13Z")

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My surname is distinctly of Anglo-Saxon origin, and just a locational name. Means “small glade”, basically, so _Parvum Saltus_, or possibly _Parvum Nemus_? I could go with just _Nemus_, that sounds okay to me.

Greek might be _ξέφωτο_ (_Xéfoto_).

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**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/15 "2022-08-28T20:57:20Z")

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Georgius Mercator. I didn’t have to look it up, I knew that my first name is a Northern variant of the old Greek name that means “farmer”, and my last name I found in the OP because it’s a variant of “Kremer” (or “Krämer”). This thread is fun, and if I’ll ever write a book, I’ll take that as my pseudonym.

> [@Johanna](#):
>
> [Mercator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerardus_Mercator) \< Kremer (merchant)

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**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/16 "2022-08-28T21:03:43Z")

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Viranatis (latin)  
Anthroposnetta (greek)

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**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/17 "2022-08-28T22:00:08Z")

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If I look up my dopername, it’s Charoúmenos in Greek and Hilaris in Latin. I think it would be more natural to go for Hilaris, if I were publishing back then.

And I just want to say that the internet is full of bilge about name meanings. Total rotting bilge.

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/18 "2022-08-28T22:59:40Z")

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> [@susan](#):
>
> So Σουσάμι Εβραίος (Susan the Jew, probably needs the feminine suffix) or Σουσάμι daughter of somebody, or Σουσάμι The Righteous/Beautiful/Goatherd, etc.

That’s beautiful; it harks back to ancient Hellenization of Jews in places like Alexandria. Renaissance humanists considered Hebrew a Classical language alongside Greek and Latin, and if anything would have been inclined to translate their names _into_ Hebrew.

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/19 "2022-08-28T23:06:24Z")

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> [@Limmin](#):
>
> (“rabbit home”)  
> […]  
> Can these be combined into one word that’s more name-like?

Ancient Greek for rabbit is λεβηρίς lebēris and home is οἶκος oikos. Compounding them we get Leberoikos or in Latinized spelling Leberoecus.  
On second thought, the noun stem (based on the genitive case) is probably [leberid](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BB%CE%B5%CE%B2%CE%B7%CF%81%CE%AF%CF%82#Etymology_2)-, which would produce Leberidoikos/Leberidoecus.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471/20 "2022-08-28T23:10:42Z")

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> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#):
>
> Angry Man of the Black Forest

Hmm… angry=orgilos, man= aner, black=melainos, forest=drymos, so Orgilander Melainodrymikos. Now there’s a name to reckon with.

[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-renaissance-humanist-name/970471.md?page=2)