Update! For a real comprehensive database of many ancient Egyptian names, visit the excellent Persons and Names of the Middle Kingdom and Early New Kingdom database at University of Mainz. I will continue to maintain this page as a convenient quick list of some of the most common ones.
Names which contain other names
Many (not all!) Egyptian names are theophoric; that is, “god-bearing”. They contain the name of a god and say something about that god. A lot of these names are “templates” in that you’ll see multiple identical names differing only by god: for example, Amenhotep, Rahotep, Khnumhotep, etc. In all cases, I use “N” for the god’s name contained in the person’s name. The above examples all fall under “-hotep”.
Some names are basileophoric “king-bearing”, and contain a king’s name rather than a god’s name. For convenience I refer to “the god’s name” in the descriptions below, but some of them can be seen with king’s names as well.
If you’re curious about the grammatical construction of a particular pattern, see the “Grammar Notes” section at the bottom of the page.
- -emhat, -emheb, -emope (e.g. Amenemhat, Horemheb, Amenemope)
N m ḥꜣt, N m ḥꜣb, N m jpt
“N in the forefront”, “N in festival”, “N in Luxor” respectively - -hotep (e.g. Amenhotep)
N ḥtp(.w)
“N is satisfied”. - -messes (e.g. Ramesses)
N ms sw
“N has given birth to him”.
Easily confused with “-mose” below. - -mose (e.g. Thutmose)
N ms(.w)
“N is born” - -nakht (e.g. Hornakht)
N nḫt(.w)
“N is strong” - Akhen- (e.g. Akhenaten)
ꜣḫ n N
“effective for N” - Ankhefen- (M), Ankhesen- (F) (e.g. Ankhefenkhons, Ankhesenamun)
ꜥnḫ.f n N, ꜥnḫ.s n N
“s/he lives for N” - Ankhnes- (F) (e.g. Ankhnesneferibre)
ꜥnḫ n.s N
“N lives for her” - Djed-…-iufankh (M), Djed-…-iuesankh (F) (e.g. Djedptahiufankh, Djedmutiuesankh)
ḏd N jw.f ꜥnḫ(.w), ḏd N jw.s ꜥnḫ(.w)
“N speaks, and s/he lives”. - Mery- (M), Merit- (F) (e.g. Meryamun, Meritaten)
mry N, mry.t N
“Beloved of N”. - Nakht- (e.g. Nakhtmin)
nḫt N
“N is strong” - Nes(u)- (M), Nes(i)- (F) (e.g. Nesubanebdjed, Nesitanebetashru)
nj sw N, nj sj N
“s/he belongs to N” - Niankh- (e.g. Niankhkhnum)
nj ꜥnḫ N
“life belongs to N” - Tutankh– (e.g. Tutankhamun)
twt ꜥnḫ N
“living image of N”
Other names
Not every Egyptian name relied on someone else’s name for clout!
- Hatshepsut (F): ḥꜣ.t-šps.wt “foremost of noblewomen”
- Imhotep (M): jj m ḥtp “(the one who) comes in peace”
- Nakht (M): nḫt “strong”
- Nodjem (M), Nodjmet (F): nḏm, nḏm.t “sweet”
- Nofret (F): nfr.t “beautiful”, “perfect”
Greek variants
A few prominent names were known to Greek historians about whom it can be said “at least you tried”.
- Amasis (M): Greek version of Ahmose. See “-mose” above. Note that the “Ah-” is jꜥḥ, the moon god Iah.
- Amenophis (M): Greek version of Amenhotep. See “-hotep” above.
- Psusennes (M): Greek version of Pasabakhaenniut, pꜣ sbꜣ ḫꜥ n nwt “the star appearing in the city”
- Tuthmosis (M): Greek variation of Thutmose. See “-mose” above.
Grammar notes
- -emhat, -emheb, -emope: These are simple prepositional phrases following the honored name.
- -hotep: ḥtp(.w) is the stative of ḥtp “to be satisfied”, and with the god’s name this is in the subject-stative construction, in which the subject goes first. And the .w of the stative usually disappears in writing. (You may see old Egyptology texts spelling something like “Amenhotpou”, implying the .w.)
- -messes: ms is the perfect participle form of msj “to give birth to”; since it is a participle describing the god, it comes after the god’s name. The object pronoun sw in turn follows its verb, which is the participle. It can be read as the god’s name and an adjective clause: “___, who has given birth to him.”]
- -mose: Contrasting with “-messes” above, in this case, it is the god who is born, rather than the person being given birth by the god. But it comes from another form of msj “to give birth”: ms(.w) is the stative form, so like with “-hotep”, the subject-stative construction means that the god’s name comes first.
- -nakht: Subject-stative construction, like “-mose” and “-hotep”.
- Akhen-: Adjective followed by simple prepositional phrase.
- Ankhefen-: Simple verbal sentence in standard order: verb, pronoun subject, pronoun dative. (VsdoSOA components: Vsd)
- Ankhnes-: Simple verbal sentence in standard order: verb, pronoun dative, noun subject. (VsdoSOA components: VdS)
- Djed-…-iufankh, Djed-…-iuesankh: ḏd and the deity’s name are a simple sentence: “___ speaks”. jw.f ꜥnḫ.(w) combines the “true now” meaning of jw with the stative ꜥnḫ.w, meaning “(now) he lives” (or jw.s for “she”), so the whole conveys “the god speaks and I live”, perhaps with the force of “the god speaks and so now I live.” jw is a very difficult word to interpret, so other translations can be found, such as “___ says: may s/he live!” And finally, the .w ending of the stative is usually not written, especially by Late Egyptian when this name pattern is prominent.
- Mery-, Merit-: mry is the participle “beloved” from mrj “to love”. Since the participle describes the person and not the deity, the gender depends on that of the person, mry or mry.t. Incidentally, the “y” versus “i” in the English spelling is just a convention I see a lot: I see “Meryneith” more than “Merineith”, but “Meritamun” more than “Merytamun”. But either vowel could really be used in either gender.
- Nakht-: Same meaning, essentially, as “-nakht”, except in this case, it’s a simple adjectival sentence.
- Nes(u)-, Nes(i)-: This uses the genitival adjective nj “belonging”, followed by the 3rd person dependent pronoun sw or sj. In a sentence “nj A B”, if A is a dependent pronoun, then B is the possessor and A the possession, so, “s/he belongs to N”.
- Niankh-: Like “Nes(u)-” above, this is a nj sentence of belonging, except here the A component in “nj A B” is the noun ꜥnḫ “life”.
- Tutankh-: Here ꜥnḫ is the participle “living”, following and modifying twt “image”.