Europe
The structure of persons' names has varied across time and geography. In some communities, individuals have been mononymous; that is, each person has received only a single name. Alulim, first king of Sumer, is one of the earliest names known; Narmer, an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, is another. Later, Biblical names were typically mononymous, as were names in the surrounding cultures of the Fertile Crescent. Ancient Greek names also followed the pattern, with second names only used to avoid confusion, as in the case of Zeno the Stoic and Zeno of Elea.
A notable departure from this custom occurred among the Romans, who by the Republican period and throughout the Imperial period used multiple names: a male citizen's name comprised three parts, praenomen (given name), nomen (clan name) and cognomen (family line within the clan) — the nomen and cognomen being virtually always hereditary. Post-antiquity most of them are, however, mononymous in most contexts: examples are Cicero (also known as Tully: Marcus Tullius Cicero), Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus), Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), Nero (Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus) or Juvenal (Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis).
In other cultures the following can be named: Euripides, Xenophon, Aristotle and, further afield, Boudica and Jugurtha.
During the early Middle Ages, mononymy slowly declined, with northern and eastern Europe keeping the tradition longer than the south; an example is Edeko, the East Germanic chieftain whose son ruled Italy as Flavius Odoacer. By the end of the period, however, surnames had become commonplace: Edmund Ironside, for example, ruled England, Brian Boru was High-king of Ireland, Kenneth MacAlpin had united Scotland, and even in Scandinavia surnames were taking hold. The Dutch Renaissance scholar and theologian Erasmus is a late example of mononymity; though sometimes referred to as "Desiderius Erasmus" or "Erasmus of Rotterdam", he was christened only as "Erasmus", after the martyr Erasmus of Formiae.
Read more about this topic: Mononymous Person, History
Famous quotes containing the word europe:
“We go to Europe to be Americanized.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Is not our role to stand for the one thing which means our own salvation here but with which it will also be possible to save the world, and with which Europe will be able to save itself, namely the preservation of the white man and his state?”
—Hendrik Verwoerd (1901–1966)
“New York has her wilderness within her own borders; and though the sailors of Europe are familiar with the soundings of her Hudson, and Fulton long since invented the steamboat on its waters, an Indian is still necessary to guide her scientific men to its headwaters in the Adirondack country.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)