Names and identities in Christian Egypt.

The christianization of Egypt induces major changes in both onomastic and non-onomastic identifiers. The relation between onomastic changes and religious conversion were already studied, but a reexamination with quantified data is necessary. From the IVth century, Christian names appear in Egypt (e.g. Biblical names, names of apostles, martyrs or virtues), while pagan names mostly disappear. But though the names change, we sometimes find the same phenomena in Graeco-Roman and Byzantine Egypt: the popularity of names evolves and local saints deeply influenced the onomastics of their region, just as in the preceding periods theonymic names often derived from the local gods.Special attention goes to the names used in monastic communities. A great number of monks had identical names, especially names of the dedicatory saint(s) of the monastery. This suggests that monks adopted a new name when entering in a monastery, but it could also only indicate a local recruitment. This problematic needs further investigations in the light of later monastic developments both in the East and in the West. A similar renaming may have occurred with bishops, where sometimes dynasties of like-named bishops occur (cf. the bishop of Rome now).

Keywords:onomastics, social history, Coptic

Disciplines:Linguistics, History, Economic history