Ramsay, William Mitchell: The cities and bishoprics of Phrygia: being an essay of the local history of Phrygia from the earliest time to the Turkish conquest (Band 1,2): West and West-Central Phrygia (Oxford, 1897)

492 XII. CHRISTIAN INSCRIPTIONS OF S.W. PHRYGIA.

When a pagan was converted he did not change his name publicly.
To do so would have been to proclaim his change of religion, and
such publicity was discouraged strongly by the Church. Hence the
common pagan names continued to be used by the Chr. The use
of obviously pagan names was proscribed at the Nicene Council
a. d. 325 ', and biblical names were ordered to be given at baptism.
Yet such names as Mercuiina, Jovina, persisted much later; and
names like Phoebe, Nereus, Hernias or Hermes, &c, were consecrated
in virtue of the early saints and martyrs who bore them, and escaped
any such proscription.

Though in the pre-Constantinian period there had not yet been
formed a distinctively Christian nomenclature, yet, even in the third
century, the beginnings of a Christian system of names can be traced.
Certain names were favoured, which, though common to the pagans,
either conveyed a meaning that suited the new religion, or had been
consecrated by some martyr, or in some other way pleased the
Christians. Converts retained their old names; but they would
favour Chr. names for their children. Hence we should expect to
find in a family which had been Chr. for a generation or two a
mixture of old family names with names of a more marked type.
Lists have not been made, and cannot as yet be made usefully, for
each district would vary. Alexander and Zotikos were evidently
favourite names among the Eumenian and Apamean Chr., the former
perhaps partly because of the Eumenian martyr2, the latter because
of its meaning. Tatia and Ammia are also very common in Eume-
neia, and the reason here probably is that they were names belonging
to certain Chr. families.

Such names as Agape and Pistis are exclusively Chr., while Elpis
and Eirene, though used among the pagans, became by adoption
characteristically Christian3. Zco^ofiipi]4 and Redemptus seem ob-

1 Le Blant I p. 76 quotes Conoil. 3 Le Blant I p. 45, who has collected
Nicaeno'-Arab. cap. XXX Fideles nothina most of the examples quoted in these
gentilium filiis suis 11011 imponant; sed two paragraphs, refers to Eusebius H.E.
potius omnis natio Christianorum suis V 24 and Acta Agapes, Chioniae et Ei-
nominihus utatur, ut gentiles suis utuntur venae (in Ruinart). Eirene in Kaibel
Labbe II 299. 1563 (quoted p. 497). Such names as

2 See no. 355. Of the other martyrs' A-deo-datus, Quod-vult-Deus (male and
names, Thraseas is unknown in the female), Deus-det, Servus-Dei, Homo-
inscr., and Gaios is not very common in dei, which he also quotes, are of a later
Chr. use (Gaios no. 354, Gaiane no. 358): order than those mentioned in the text,
seep. 494. Hence it was probably rather ' Sozomenos, however, is also pagan:
from its being hereditary in some Chr. so perhaps Agapomenos see no. 357,
family that Alexander is so frequent. 350.