Onomastics of Women in Babylonia in the First Millennium BC

Abstract

This paper aims to survey the onomastics of Babylonian women in the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid periods (from the end of the 8th century BC to the end of the 4th century BC). After the introduction, we discuss Akkadian personal names on the basis of abundant Neo-Babylonian socio-economic texts. Our database shows that there were several popular categories of names for newborn girls. While most names could be given to women belonging to different social groups, we also observe the social homogeneity of those bearing certain names or categories of names. In the third section, we will discuss the recurrence of some particular theophoric elements, which allows us to assess the roles and statues of several goddesses, such as Ba’u, Mullissu, Ištar and Nanaya. Finally, the fourth section deals with non-Babylonian names: on the one hand, a sample of names that occur in the Āl- Yāḫūdu archives and showing cases of assimilation of Judean community to the Babylonian people, and on the other hand other foreign names, like Iranian names, borne by Babylonian individuals in the first millennium BC.