That the society of men among men, and [their] union for the mutual usefulness of life and of all works, may flourish, a proper name of his own is wont to be imposed on each [person] — among almost all nations — either immediately from birth, or not very long after. For, as Pliny says (book 5, chapter 8) from Herodotus: “The Atlantes were degenerate from human customs, among whom [there was] no usual calling by names.” Which [saying] Stobaeus (oration 42) transfers to the Abarantes, who alone are wont even to curse the rising sun [the East]. St. Paulinus indeed said: “And [he] who reigned soon without a name: Sesostris” — but…
…but “without a name,” that is, “without heirs,” as Scaliger expounds (book 3 of the Isagoge, page 310). Among the Greeks, names were given to newborn infants on the tenth day — at the [festival] of the Amphidromia, which for that reason are also called Nominalia, or “the solemnity of the Nominalia,” by Tertullian (book On Idolatry, chapter 16); [and] it is noted by a proverb in Suidas. [Names] which afterward, at Athens, were given so that they might conduct themselves as citizens — among the curiales [ward-members] at the fifteenth year of age (as the scholiast of Aristophanes’ Wasps wrote out of Aristotle), but among the populares at the eighteenth year, when they were enrolled from boys into Ephebi, and so into men — as Sigonius notes (book 2, On the Republic of the Athenians, chapter 2). Among the Romans, although Valerius said that names were not imposed on boys before they took the manly toga, [nor] on girls before they married, Festus [held otherwise] — with whom, in the Roman Questions, Plutarch agrees, and Macrobius (book 1 of the Saturnalia, chapter 16); this is the teaching: “the lustral days of infants are named — the eighth for girls, the ninth for boys — because on these they are purified, and names are imposed on them.” And therefore that day too [was] called Nominalis [“Naming-day”], as I said it was called by Tertullian; it was not the seventh of the week from the birth of the infant (as Scaliger suspects, on Ausonius book 2, chapter 22), but at least the eighth, as has been said. Yet afterward Antoninus the Philosopher ordered (Capitolinus [being] witness) that this imposition be done on the third day. Among the Jews, the day which was the eighth from birth, for circumcising the boy, was decreed the same also for naming, as appears from St. Luke 1 & 2 — and that either by a divine precept, known by tradition, or by a human [one], which arose from that long and old custom. For this is the opinion of the book On the Cardinal Works of Christ, when it says: “On the eighth day it was intimated that the name is fitted to the circumcised — [those] who were reckoned worthy of the fellowship of the saints, because their names were being written in heaven, and [that they are] heirs of the eternal beatitude which follows, on the eighth [day], after the week of this life.” Among us Christians, by a custom drawn now from the Apostles themselves — as Bellarmine shows against Illyricus (book 1 On Baptism, chapter 26) — when baptism is given to infants, the name too is given, so that by that very [act] they may profess that they are enrolled in the book of life, in the Christian warfare, and be held such by all.
Joshua, therefore, in his circumcision, was called Hosea, or Osee; but afterward, by Moses, with a very slight change, Iehosua, or Iosue. For so we read (Numbers 13, verse 16): “And Moses called Osee, the son of Nun, Josue” — of which [we] must treat a little more [fully], for this is a very great [matter], as will be clear below. And that names of this kind are not without cause either imposed or changed, Origen beautifully teaches (homily 23 on the book of Joshua): “It is not to be thought,” he says, “that it happened by chance that that Angel was called Michael, and another Gabriel, and another Raphael; and — to descend to human [examples] — as it was not by chance that that Patriarch was called Abraham, and that [other] Isaac, and another Israel; but not even in human [namings] did it happen by chance, but by a certain and divine reasoning — [as] that Sara was named from Sarai, or Israel from Jacob, or Abraham from Abram.” And it is certain that each one, whether of angels or of men, obtains names also from those duties and deeds which are enjoined [on him].