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Mammonymy, Maternal-Line Names, And Cultural Identification: Clues From The Onomasticon Of Hellenistic Uruk, Stephanie Langin-Hooper, Laurie Pearce

Art History Research

The onomasticon of Hellenistic Uruk demonstrates that, in some cases, individuals with Greek names were included in otherwise Babylonian families. Often, such Greek names have been interpreted by scholars as evidence for Hellenization. This article suggests an alternate explanation, based on evidence throughout the family trees for a series of naming practices that focus on the perpetuation of names of female relatives and transmission of preferred family names through maternal lines. Particularly important to this discussion are the practices of mammonymy, a term coined here to refer to papponymy’s gendered parallel, i.e., the naming of a girl after her grandmother …