Alexand**'s name?

[Thomas]

I received the following email recently. I am no linguist but thought that the companions might have something to say...==============================================
Dear webmasterI would like to ask you to make a correction to your site about the name of Alexander III. You mention:
"His real name was, of course, Alexandros" and you call him "Alexandros Philippou Makedonon" His name was not AlexandrOS. This is how the ancient Greek historians had recorded the name and simply made a translation. Just like the English translation of Pavle, Pavel, is Paul. The Roman historians who wrote in Latin did NOT call him AlexandrOS, and on the Macedonian coins (including of Alexander I and Alexander II) there is no S at the end, but rather Alexandro, or "of Alexander's". Thus please remove the reference that his name was Alexandros, but Alexander.
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[jorgios]

There was no "s" at the end of his name on the coin because for some reason it is on their "informally" the "s" in the name would not have been pronounced with an "s" in Attic Greek or Macedonian Greek(as far as we know, knowledge of this dialect is limited but it can be presumed that it was similar to the other Greek dialects in history).
Furthermore, since the language of the Macedonian court was Attic Greek, the same as the Athenians we can assume that his name was truly "Alexandros". A Greek term that means Alexi=Defend, Defender; Andros, Andro= Man, person
i.e. Defender of Man.I could be wrong, but this seems like a likely explanation.
Regards.

[marcus]

That's certainly very interesting.I shall check what it says on my tetradrachm (and my drachma although that's a bit small for my ageing eyes to make out very well). It's probably a coin from Lysimachos or other such successor (apparently, thanks to a lesson in numismatics that Tre gave me a few months ago) but I'll be interested to see what it says.But I won't get to check until the weekend, so I'm likely to forget - anyone can remind me if they wish.All the bestMarcus

[susa]

Oh well. There's always someone who wants to bring in a new controversy.... the world is like this anyway.I myself follow what Willy said once [alas, not to me....] : What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
susa

[John]

I'll put in my two cents:There are basically two ways to say his name in english: Alexander and Alexander'sAlexander = the Greek Alexandros
Alexander's = the Greek AlexandrouIf you write Alexandros in place of Alexander, you're kind of mixing Greek and English, but no big deal.John

[John]

I didn't separate them right in the above post (don't want to confuse anyone!)Also, if a coin says Alexandro, it's probably because the "u" got worn off.John

[John]

Susa,"What's in a name?"That's what struck me when I started learning Greek. All their names mean something. Someone posted above what Alexander's name means. Philip means horse-lover. It's like native Americans: Crazy horse, or Screaming Eagle.But what's with english names? John, Dean, Mike. I don't even know the meaning of these names!John

[Thomas]

What would the companions have called Alexander. i.e. if I was listening in to a conversation on my time-o-phone what would I have heard phonetically?a-lex-an-der
a-lex-an-dru
a-lex-an-drosThomas

[John]

I would say a-LEX-an-dros, accent on the LEX.John

[yiannis]

Please, give me a break! Enough with the Greece-Fyrom debate!
The person who send the e-mail to Thomas is probably one of those who insist that the Macedonians were speaking Ancient-Slavonic.
Well ok, maybe his name was Oleksandr after all!
BUT, since it's documented that the Macedonians language was a Greek one, here's how it goes:
nominative: Alexandros
genitive : Alexandrou
dative: Alexandro
accusative: Alexandro
vocative: Alexandre
In ancient coins the names were rarelly depicted in a whole. Most of the times just an abbreviation was enough. The ending was almost always omitted because it was self-evident and because there was not enough space. For example king Lysimachos' of Macedonia (one of ATG's bodyguards, later king of Pontus) coins write "Vasileo (ending "s" omitted) Lysimax (os omitted). In a few cases when the technique or the coin artist were exceptional the name could be written in full and in those cares you'll clearly see that it's written "ALEXANDROU"In any case, since coins were the originators of this discussion, please visit http://ancient-coin-forum.com/Greek/Greek_Coins.htm and let's end this once and for good.regards,
YiannisPS
I cannot believe that I've actually replied to this posting!

[marcus]

Yiannis,You might not believe that you actually replied, but I'm jolly grateful that you did. As you know I can't abide the Gr/FYROM arguments, but your posting was very interesting, so thank you.All the bestMarcus

[susa]

What does Susa mean, John? I know what my real name means, but not Susa...
John means 'God is graceful', in Hebrew. Nice, no?:)susa

[susa]

YannisIt is always good to have a very neat, realist reply.Cheerssusa

[John]

Susa,Great. I'm not a noun (person, place or thing); I'm a statement. "Hey, God is graceful, how are you doing?" Maybe one day I'll earn a real name!What does Susa mean? I don't know. Because of Alexander's history, I always associate it with marriage, but I don't know what it means.John

[yiannis]

Thnaks (both) for your nice comments.
Btw, my name is Yiannis (or John in English). Is there a change that you might know what does it mean?cheers,
YiannisOh! one more thing. Did you know that Greek is the only western language that is cemantic? Meaning that all words derive from a root that actually means something. All the others are semiotic which means that e.g. a table is called a table because people at some point in history have agreed that this object will be call as such.