Tutankhamun sounds alien to me
In: Culture
Probably most Ancient Egyptian names would sound alien to us, as they are from a language that evolved over a nearly 2,000 year span which predates most modern languages and which is only now used in very, very limited Coptic religious circles.
In reality, the word “Tutankhamun” is nothing too foreign – it means “Living image of Amun”. His birth name was actually Tutankhaten – the living image of Aten.
Lots of Egyptian names were spiritual like this, or sometimes even just adjectives (like “Neferet” means “beautiful woman”).
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They evolved from their own mythology and local history, with meanings that are completely reasonable.
Look at Emanuel, which can also be spelled Immanuel or Immanu’el. The ‘ is a hebrew letter.
Meaning: “God with us”. God as in the the god El, which came to mean the hebrew God.
Makes no sense in a language and culture not influenced by judaism/christianity. But completely normal in english, or why not the Spanish “Manuel”?
The only thing making them different is because we do not share the culture and language.
Örjan and George, Karl and Charles. One is Swedish, a Northern germanic language, the other is English, a Northern germanic language. But a bit different even though being close in both geography speaking and language speaking. Then introduce a whole different language. Even if you go a bit east to Russia and you get Yuri instead of Örjan and George.
Most names you know come from the languages around you and its cultural influences.
You would not expect that for example a Japanese name by as familiar as a standard english name.
King Tut’s name held meaning in the language in which it was given. It contained a reference to the Egyptian God Amun.
With some languages like those found among the natives in North America, the names sometimes are translated like “Sitting Bull” whose actual name was something more like “Tatanka Iyotake”.
Many names common in English today come from the Bible and a few are nearly as old as King Tut’s name, but they are modified to fit into the English language.
The most stereotypical name in English is John and it has its roots in ancient Hebrew (referencing their god) and was distributed around the world with Christianity and the Bible. It turned into John, Juan, Ivan, Sean, Hans, Jean, Giovanni, Evan and many others.
If King Tut’s name was passed on to today it would have undergone similar transformations and the results would not feel alien to you because you are used to them.
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