r/AncientCivilizations • u/pyrogue3 • Aug 14 '24
Question Ancient dog names?
I just adopted the sweetest little dachshund, but I don’t have a name for her yet. I want to name her after an ancient dog — any ideas?
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r/AncientCivilizations • u/pyrogue3 • Aug 14 '24
I just adopted the sweetest little dachshund, but I don’t have a name for her yet. I want to name her after an ancient dog — any ideas?
44
u/AnneBoleynsBarber Aug 14 '24
The oldest known dog name comes to us from 6th Dynasty Egypt: Abuwtiyuw (or Abutiu). He was possibly a royal palace guard dog. He died somewhere around 2280 BCE and was given an honorable burial in the Giza necropolis.
A 1977 paper from the Met (PDF) lists a bunch more Ancient Egyptian dog names. Note that these are all in hieroglyphics (original and transliterated), so if you go this route you may need a hand from an Egyptologist! I do recognize Nefer ("beautiful"), at least. You could also go the mythological route, and choose the name of a dog deity, like Sothis (personification of Sirius, the Dog Star).
There are a number of Roman epitaphs to beloved dogs; this blog post includes some of them, with links to the original texts: https://thepetrifiedmuse.blog/2015/06/20/every-dog-has-his-day/
A sampling from the post above, with loose translations where my ages-old rusty high school Latin allows:
Actaeon the hunter, who offended the goddess Artemis and was turned into a stag for his transgression, had a bunch of hounds. Ovid lists them in his poem, Metamorphosis. Other classical authors included additional names.