Social recognition of the human individual can take form at specific moments or rites of naming. Here, it is easier to find evidence for kingship than for humanity. The main written source for naming practices is a literary narrative on the birth of kings to the creator-god (Papyrus Westcar, perhaps 1550 Bc). The main visual source is, again, on the divine birth of the king, a narrative cycle of scenes, first found in the temple for Hatshepsut as king (1475 BC, Robins 1993, 46-47, 82-83). There may be echoes of practice beyond kingship, in the content of names of other people, as most of these names have direct expressive meaning in the ancient Egyptian language: many invoke the blessings of the gods or family, and some seem to capture the cries of relief and joy at a safe birth (Vernus 1986, 125-126): “Abundance of the Nile flood!,” “May the Gold (Hathor) protect her!,” “May she/he live!,” “May she/he be well!,” “She/he is for me!,” “A son for me!,” “Health to me!,” “What peace!,” “My heart is cleansed (joyful),” “As my name lives!,” and “May she/ he be well for me!.” Although perhaps not universal, the giving of a second name is found across the three millennia and is the dominant naming pattern in some periods. As with the single name, it is not certain when a person received the second name. In the century around 1800 BC, official documents list individuals by two columns of names, with the mark it is his name (i. e., no second name) for the minority with only one name; the double column demonstrates that two names would have been the norm at this period. The second column tends to give shorter names, as if the first gave the fuller, more formal one. One list of workers from Lahun in this period has only the second column of short names filled in, with a mark perhaps for child quickly scrawled on each line of the first column (Collier and Quirke 2006, 55-56, UC32130). Evidently, these children were old enough to be working, but had not yet received their second name: perhaps, then, the child received the first name at or near the moment of birth and the second at puberty.
World History
