Names
The use of two-word compound words for personal names, typically but not always ascribing some noble or heroic feat to their bearer, is so common in Indo-European languages that it seems certainly inherited. These names are often of the class of compound words that in Sanskrit are called bahuvrihi compounds.
They are found in the Celtic region (Dumnorix: "king of the world"; Kennedy: "ugly head"), in Indo-Aryan languages (Asvaghosa: "tamer of horses"); in Greek (Socrates: "good ruler", Hipparchos: "horse master"; Cleopatra: "from famous lineage") in Slavic languages (Vladimir: "great ruler"); in the Germanic languages (Alfred: "elf-counsel"; Godiva: "gift of God"), and in the Anatolian languages (Piyama-Radu: "gift of the devotee?").
Patronymics such as Gustafsson ("son of Gustaf"), MacDonald ("son of Donald") are also frequently encountered in Indo-European languages.
Read more about this topic: Proto-Indo-European Society
Famous quotes containing the word names:
“It was a poetic recreation to watch those distant sails steering for half-fabulous ports, whose very names are a mysterious music to our ears.... It is remarkable that men do not sail the sea with more expectation. Nothing was ever accomplished in a prosaic mood.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words.... The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“We rarely quote nowadays to appeal to authority ... though we quote sometimes to display our sapience and erudition. Some authors we quote against. Some we quote not at all, offering them our scrupulous avoidance, and so make them part of our “white mythology.” Other authors we constantly invoke, chanting their names in cerebral rituals of propitiation or ancestor worship.”
—Ihab Hassan (b. 1925)