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1 Motives for name‐giving: Anthroponyms are not primarily motivated by the lexical meaning of their constituents; insofar they may not be understood as “meaningful” forms. Usually they can be interpreted as wishful names, by which the parents express their hope of strength, wealth, noble‐mindedness, intelligence, or the like for their newborn child. For the motivation of choice, in particular cases the most common procedure is the custom of choosing some name that has already appeared in the father's (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.