(or the mother's) family, e.g. by naming the grandson after the grandfather (as in the series of Kuruš–Kambjiya–Kuruš–Kambjiya or Ochus–Arses–Ochus–Arses, if one takes the birth‐names of the kings Darius II, Artaxerxes II and III, and Arses [= Artaxerxes IV?]). A popular means of expressing the family's feeling of belonging together is to form a series of half‐parallel, half‐varying names by repeating one element of the father's name in the sons' names or one and the same element in the names of several brothers. Apart from the family tradition, name‐giving after figures of history, mythology, fable, etc. can be observed. Because of such traditional giving of names one must be cautious about drawing any conclusions from names, e.g. those regarding the parents' religious convictions.
2 Throne‐names: The Achaemenid kings' custom of changing the name at accession to the throne and to take a “throne‐name” or “royal name” instead of the birth‐name or private name is well attested in two independent traditions, viz. in Greek (and Roman) literary sources as well as in Late Babylonian chronicles and astronomical texts, that decisively confirm the literary evidence (cf. Schmitt 1982). Whereas in the official royal inscriptions only the throne‐names appear, collateral tradition informs us about the birth‐names of Artaxerxes I to III and Darius II and III, too. The throne‐names assumed by the newly‐appointed kings express some religious–political program or motto: OPers. Dāraya‐vauš (Darius) “Holding firm/retaining the good”; Xšaya‐r◦šan‐ (Xerxes) “Ruling over heroes”; and R◦ta‐xšaça‐ (Artaxerxes) “Whose rule is through Truth (or sim.).” Since OPers. Dārayavauš is such a throne‐name for certain, but the institution is attested already before Darius II, it seems to be obvious to postulate a throne‐name already for Darius I (cf. Schmitt 1982: p. 93 = Schmitt 2000: 172f.). That the institution of throne‐names actually began just with this king, who came to the throne not by normal succession, may be combined with the apparent break in the tradition of royal names just here, when the series of etymologically unclear and disputed names like Cišpiš, Kuruš, and Kambjiya is followed by those fully transparent programmatic throne‐names.
3 Onomastic and prosopographical identity: Since the evidence of Old Persian anthroponyms in genuine sources is rather limited and the wealth of material preserved in the collateral traditions often is not rendered accurately enough, it is important to join together for each single name all the material which eventually belongs together, in order to find out the original form (or forms) as exactly as possible. It is known that in particular the transcriptions in Mesopotamian cuneiform (i.e. in the Elamite and Babylonian languages) are not very precise, as we see, e.g., from the countless spelling variations mainly of the royal names (in the case of Darius more than 100). In general, one has to compare all the attested forms down to the last detail, because not rarely variant forms, e.g. a two‐stem compound name and a shortened form or an allegro form, appear next to each other (cf. four‐syllable OPers. Xšaya‐r◦šā vs. two‐syllable Gk. Ξέρξης).
Apart from the royal names and from the inscriptions recorded in several versions, the first question to be asked in such cases often is simply whether we have to do actually with one and the same name at all. Therefore evidence of both onomastic and prosopographical identity is particularly welcome and significant, not least material connecting the various branches of the tradition including the collateral one. For instance, Elamite evidence proved to be of decisive importance for identifying the original Old Persian forms of the names of the famous general Gk. Δᾶτις and the princess Ἀρτυστώνη, as Elam. Da‐ti‐ia and Ir‐taš‐du‐na gave unambiguous hints to OPers. *Dātiya‐ and *R◦ta‐stūnā‐ respectively. Similar relations may be observed also between Greek and Aramaic or Babylonian evidence, e.g. for ∑πιτάμᾱς, son of Πετήσᾱς (in Ctesias F 14 § 42), and Is‐pi‐ta‐ma‐’, son of Pa‐te‐e‐šú, in a document from the Murašû Archive dated 424/23 BCE (cf. Schmitt 2006: p. 193). And by equating the name Gk. Ἱεραμένης with Lyc. Eriyamãna (both being closely connected with Τισσαϕέρνης, Ὑδάρνης and Kizzaprñna, Widrñna respectively), even the Lycian Xanthus stele is a great help to make the Greek form understandable. It must be said, however, that something like a “Prosopographia Imperii Persici Achaemenidarum” is missing, as the study of Balcer (1993) is neither sufficient nor reliable.
Also more general points of view should be kept in mind, e.g. the fact that according to the Bīsutūn text, all of the generals loyal to the king were Iranians, either “Persians” (as Vaumisa, Dādr◦šiš, R◦tavardiya, Vivāna, and Vindafarnā are explicitly called) or “Median” (Taxmaspāda), or at least bore an Iranian name (as the so‐called “Armenian” Dādr◦šiš, who may have his ethnic name only in contrast to some namesake). Now, things are similar with Herodotus' list of the commanders of Xerxes' army (7.61–97): all of them and their fathers (as far as they are mentioned) bear anthroponyms of Iranian origin and therefore presumably were Iranians. A number of them are expressly called “Persians,” too, and some even especially “Achaemenids.” However, a warning against the information given by Herodotus (8.90.4): on the occasion of the battle at Salamis, he mentions that in case of some particular action, Xerxes had the name of a man written down together with his father's name and his home town. The patronymic may have been given indeed (as we see from the list of Darius' followers in DB IV 83–86), but to give also the native town seems to be a Greek way of thinking and has no Persian parallel.
Non‐Iranian Names
In the Achaemenid Empire there are attested not only Old Iranian names but also, just as was to be expected in such a multinational and multilingual state, those of other provenance. In the Old Persian royal inscriptions we find Babylonian (Nabukudracara, Nabunaita, Nadintabaira), Elamite (Aϑamaita, Imaniš), and even Urartian names (Araxa, Haldita). That the respective names abound in the particular linguistic corpora, viz. Semitic anthroponyms in the Babylonian and Aramaic inscriptions and documents, Elamite names in the Elamite Persepolis tablets, Egyptian ones in the Hieroglyphic and the Demotic texts of the period, is no surprise. The same is true also for the relevant Greek sources, where Babylonian (e.g. Ἀνδίᾱ, Λαβύνητος), Elamite (Ἀβουλίτης), Egyptian (e.g. Οὔσιρις, Πετησάκᾱς, Πετήσᾱς), etc. anthroponyms likewise are attested.
Of special interest is the onomasticon of the Persepolis tablets, where most of the non‐Iranian names are of Elamite origin. They can be made out especially where the same form is found already in pre‐Achaemenid Elamite texts or they contain without any doubt typical Elamite components. Zadok (1984) had attempted a formal analysis and reduction of Elamite names to their components and at the same time listed those onomastic componential stems. A more detailed interpretation is impeded, however, by the fact that the meaning of Elamite lexemes mostly is not exactly known; therefore Zadok's typological sketch of the names has a more provisional character. A particular group of names are the hypocoristics, which are collected and analyzed by Zadok (1983); the most striking and the main type of such hypocoristics are forms with a reduplicated final syllable like Ba‐(iz‐)zi‐zi, Ha‐pu‐pu, Mi‐te‐te, Ša‐at‐ru‐ru, etc. (cf. Mayrhofer 1973: pp. 306–309; Zadok 1983: pp. 96–107). Sometimes those formations seem to have been modified to Old Persian hypocoristics in *‐iča‐; in any case Koch (1990: pp. 171, 186, 213) drew this conclusion from couples like Zí‐ni‐ni vs. Zí‐ni‐iz‐za and Mi‐te‐te vs. Mi‐te‐iz‐za (cf. Hinz and Koch 1987: pp. 939, 1301), for which the prosopographical identity of the name‐bearers may be inferred from the closeness of the contexts in which the names actually occur.
Babylonian names are attested in a still larger number, but there is no full collection of that material available, since that of Tallqvist (1905) has become outdated for a long time. As to the formation of the names, a lot of different types can be observed, one‐stem, two‐stem, or multi‐stem names, shortened names, etc., in a way like the Indo‐European and Iranian types of names but in the particulars quite different from