If Philo’s book, On Those Whose Names Are Changed, and Why They Are Changed — which Eusebius mentions (book 2 of the History, chapter 18), and St. Jerome in [his] Catalogue — were extant, I might perhaps now spare myself this labor. Now, two causes are chiefly to be regarded here: the efficient and the final.
To the [efficient] pertains [the one] who, by authority and by a certain right of his own — [whether] true or usurped — gives or changes a name to someone. Of which kind, first, is GOD, by whom Abram was called Abraham (Genesis 17); Sarai, Sara — or, as in the Greek (yet corruptly, as St. Jerome warns in the [Hebrew] Traditions), Sarra — (Genesis 17); Jacob, Israel (Genesis 28 [32]); Simon, Cephas or Peter (Matthew 16); James and John, Boanerges (Mark 13 [3]). Whence also [in] Apocalypse 2, verse 17: “To the conqueror I will give a white pebble, and on the pebble a new name written.” One may consult St. Chrysostom (volume 1, homily On the Name of Abram), [and] St. Jerome on Isaiah 62 and Jeremiah 23. Then, the good Angel gives names — Luke 1, verse 13: “Thou shalt call his name John”; Luke 2,
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verse 21: “His name was called JESUS, which was called by the Angel before He was conceived in the womb.” For if [the angel], at least as herald of a divine decree, can give a name, he will be able also to change [it]. A bad Angel too [does this]. For he who dares to transform himself into an angel of light (2 Corinthians [11]) does not scruple to usurp this power too — of giving names — as regards men; as when, having accomplished his oracles, he called [the man] — the former name being dropped, which was Alcaeus, and afterward Palaemon — Hercules, in Aelian (book 2 of the Various History). The Pythian verses, which Scaliger deservedly derides in [his] Animadversions on Eusebius, are of this kind:
“For he shall not be called Alcaeus, nor Palaemon; but Phoebus names thee Heracles by surname; for, bearing glory to men, thou shalt have imperishable [fame].”
For it is the opinion of some that Satan changed the former names of his angels — when, out of angels of God, he changed them into most foul Demons — [the names] which indicated their rank, office, and excellence; and they confirm it even from recent exorcisms, which the divine goodness has favored. Thirdly, finally, men change [names] — either those themselves whose names they are, or others — as further examples will show.
But it must be observed that it is one thing to take up or impose some name at first, [and] another to change [a name] already taken and imposed. For the former is permitted to all, the latter not likewise. For thus the Emperors decree (Codex, book 9, title 25): “Just as at the beginning the imposition of a name, surname, [or] praenomen — for distinguishing individuals — is free to private persons, so the changing of them is not dangerous to the innocent.” To change, therefore, a name, or praenomen, or surname, without any fraud, [is] by lawful right; if [you do so] freely, according to what has often been decreed, you will by no means be forbidden, no prejudice being about to arise from this. Where note that [phrase], “without any fraud.” For the assertion of a false name is forbidden by the decree of the Cornelian law (Digest, book 48, title 10, the law “on a false name”); and on this one may consult Blessius (chapter 40, On the Change of Name), Berberius (part 1, rubric 11), John de Landris of Poitiers (in the Breviary of Laws, book 9, folio 111), Peter Gregory (36, Syntagma 4), Brissonius (book 7 of the Formulae, folio 671), Albericus Gentilis (book 1 On War, chapter 4). But now let us look at the final [cause].
For some, the cause of changing names is impiety — as [with] those of whom I spoke [on] 2 Maccabees chapters 3 & 4, Jason and Menelaus; and [with] him who, in this our age, named himself Pomponius Laetus, when he was Peter Caleti, according to Platina (in [the life of] Paul IV); and nearly all who turn aside from the Christian faith to Turcism [Islam]. Nay, [there are] even certain most wicked impious sorcerers, who take up an impious baptism from the devil, as our [author] Delrio shows (book 5, Magical Disquisitions, section 16, folio 78). And again, some suspect — with Anania (book 4, folio 145) — by a remarkable and insane superstition, that a change of names avails against adversaries of every kind, [both] visible and invisible, as the same Delrio asserts (book 6, chapter 2, section 1, question 1, page 146). And I know not whether it does not also smack of superstition, what Ammianus reports (book 16): namely, that a son had been born to Mederichus, brother of Chonodomarius, and was regularly called by the birth-name Agenarichus; but the father, long held as a hostage-pledge in Gaul, and having learned certain Greek mysteries, transferred [the boy’s name] to the name of Serapion. For others, [the cause is] ambition and fraud — as [those] who [seize] the kingdoms of others…
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…[For others, the cause is ambition and fraud — as those who] seek the kingdoms and princedoms of others by feigned titles of birth: as in Josephus (book 14, chapter 13), the Pseudo-Alexander; and in Valerius Maximus (book 9, chapter 15); and, in these last several years, the Pseudo-Sebastians in Lusitania [Portugal]; nay, even those who gape after private inheritances and advantages, like that [man] in Demosthenes (oration against the Boeotians), Mantitheus; and all who bring forth spurious births of children under others’ names — as in the Gospels [there are] a Pseudo-Thomas, a Pseudo-Barnabas; in histories, a Pseudo-Berosus, a Pseudo-Megasthenes; in an epistle, a Pseudo-Udalricus; in others, others. What of Porphyry? He was formerly called Malchus, but, as Eunapius relates, by putting down this [Greek] name of his he wished it to appear that he had laid aside all barbarism.
Others are moved by danger, which impends either on the guilty — as on traitors, or [those] otherwise sometimes deservedly criminal — or on the innocent, and undeservedly; as, in Virgil (book 7 of the Aeneid), Aesculapius, raised up from the dead, and “the man twice made,” Virbius; [and] in St. Augustine (heresy 49), Manes, who was formerly Urbicus — who in Cyril (Catechesis 6) [is] Curbicus, [and] in Scaliger (Notes on Eusebius, page 221) Cubricus; [and] in the same Cyril, there, the heretic Mane, earlier [named] Terebinthus, was afterward called by himself Buddas; in Xiphilinus, after the murder of Caesar, Casca and Terentius Varro, tribunes of the plebs; and so, in the times of the Emperor Valens, very many heretics — Theodotus, Theodorus, and Theodosius (Sigonius witnessing, book 8 of the Western Empire). But most apt to this matter seem the words of St. Ambrose against Auxentius — who also sometimes took the name of Mercurinus — [in] book 5 of the Epistles: “Auxentius is cast out, Mercurinus is shut out. One [man is] a portent, [with] two names. For, lest it be known who he was, he changed his appellation; so that, because he had here been Bishop Auxentius, [now, as] Adrianus, to deceive the people whom that one had held, he called himself Mercurinus. He changed, therefore, [his] appellation, but he did not change [his] treachery. He put off the wolf, and put on the wolf. It profits nothing that he changed the name. What he is, is recognized. In the parts of Scythia he was called one [thing], here he is called another. He has names according to [his] regions… For how would he suffer that an appellation should remain to him for the indication of so great a crime?”
I hear that some are led [to change names] by a foolish shame — as [Pope] Sergius [II], since he was formerly called “Pig’s-mouth” [Os porci], according to Polydore (book 4, chapter 10) [and] Reinulph (chapter 31) — just as that house at Aachen, where Calvin’s Synagogue was, is also [so] called (although Baronius, at the year 1009, rightly denies that Sergius had this name before). And to this perhaps pertains, among the Grammarians, Crassitius, surnamed Passidius (or [was it] Pachyus, or Pachydius?), who soon renamed himself Pansa, as Suetonius says (in the book On the Grammarians). And for the same cause — so that provision might be made for the shame and reputation of families — the names of harlots were changed, with the magistrates assenting. Plautus, in the Poenulus:
“Thou hast come hither today at the very time… For today their names would be changed, and they would make a shameful gain unworthy [and] by [their] body.”
Another cause draws others, concerning which I also treated more fully on St. Paul (number 6): [namely,] a more honorable [motive] — as [those] who, when they were once initiated by sacred baptism, shook off their old proper names, drawn from wherever. Since certain of the Egyptian Christians and Confessors, when they were asked their name by a Gentile Judge, [instead], for [their] proper name,
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gave forth some name of a Prophet. For this had often been done by them, says Eusebius (book 8 of the History, chapter 21): that, instead of the names of idols — which had perhaps been imposed [on them] by [their] parents — they had taken to themselves new names, a change being made. For you might have heard that they called themselves by the name of Elias, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Samuel, and Daniel, and that they pointed out the genuine and true Israel of God — [the Israel] which among the Jews was hidden — not only by the things themselves, but also by [their] names, properly and significantly expounded. So, in Bede (book 5 of the History, chapter 7), King Ceadualla, afterward Peter — because, led by love of God and of St. Peter, he had left [his] kingdom, come to his [Peter’s] threshold, and there wished to be baptized. In Marcellinus (in the Life of St. Swithbert, chapter 24), [one] who before was Herigerus, afterward was Peter, because he was baptized on St. Peter’s feast-day; [and one] who [was] Hathagerus, afterward Swithbert, because he was snatched by St. Swithbert from a palsy of body and soul (in the same [book], chapter 29); [one] who [was] ELDAK, afterward Bruno (in St. Ludger’s Epistle to Rixfrid, chapter 8); in [John] Damascene (oration On Images), and Nicephorus and others; in Lipomanus (volume 6), St. Eustathius and his wife Theopiste, when they were formerly called Placidas and Traiana. In the Saxon [Grammaticus] (book 10), Olaus, King of Sweden, afterward James; and in our age, so many Kings, princes, and other mortals in India, Japan, and the Peruvian region. For a new life seems to be entered upon in baptism; and therefore new manners too, and a new zeal, and — perhaps — the imitation of those whose names they bore, is to be taken up. Otherwise, in the state of nature, it happens as Quintilian wrote (book 9, chapter 1): “Men, if they have received another name than that which they had, are nevertheless the same.” But in the state of grace [it is necessary that] they be others — not indeed in essence, but in mind and life.
So, in the sacrament of Confirmation, Hermenigild, son of King Leovigild — when he was made a Catholic out of a heretic, and was chrismated (for I think the very word of the Turonensian [Gregory of Tours] historian, book 5, chapter 38, must be kept) — was called John; and he who had been named Wenceslaus was afterward Charles the Fourth, according to Aeneas Sylvius in the Bohemian History. In that same sacred chrismation, too — when he received it recently, that is, in the year 1602, in September, on the feast-day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, at Rome, from our most holy Lord Clement VIII himself — D. Justus Calvinus, formerly [surnamed] Calvinianus, cast off this his surname, in detestation of the heresy and of the unspeakable heresiarch [Calvin], and was called Justus Baronius — namely, by the most Reverend and most Illustrious Cardinal Baronius, who, as he received him together with his brother into [his] hospitality for some months, so also always followed [him] with all humanity and beneficence, and brought both to that sacred anointing and confirmation. But about this Justus himself published a letter to him. St. Adalbert, Bishop of Prague, in the same sacred chrismation took this name, when before he was called Woicech, as is [told] in his life, and in Pontano (books 2 & 3 of the Bohemia Pia, pages 15 & 36), and likewise in the Roman [Martyrology], in the notes on St. Abundantius (page 133).
So [also] at the entry into the religious life: as St. Antony of Padua, who formerly [was] Ferdinand; and today, among the Capuchins, [one is] named Seraphim, another Spiritus, another otherwise. Concerning our [friend] Bencius, Lipsius [says] thus, in the Miscellanea, century [1], epistle 87: “I was at Rome a most intimate [friend] of Plautus Bencius, who afterward took the holier name of Francis, with a holier life” (folio 93). And truly…
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…[And truly,] even today [it is] most usual among the Greeks that those who become Monks, and take up the schema “of penitence and angelic” [habit] (for so the monastic habit is called by them), change [their] name as [they change] their life; as D. Nectarius, Archbishop of Ochrid — who in baptism had been called Nicholas — related to me about himself.
There have also been [women] who, that they might guard [their] chastity and lie hidden safely and holily among the assemblies of the religious, laid aside [their] feminine names — as John, formerly called Susanna (December 15, [in] the Martyrology and the Menaeum of Raderus, page 110); Dorotheus, formerly Eugenia; Eugenius, formerly Eugenia, of whom [wrote] Alcimus, Fortunatus, and Aldhelm; Smaragdus, who [was] Euphrosyne; Josephus, who [was] Hildegundis; and several others, of whom [see] our Raderus, in the cited book, page 5.
So also in sacred ordination: when St. Ansgar and Ibo wished to send a certain Gaudelbert into Sweden, [and] made him Bishop, they marked him with the name of Simon (Crantzius, book 1 of the Metropolis, chapter 32). St. Willibrord was called by the Pontiff Clement; for Winfrid, Boniface, our first Archbishop of Mainz, as I showed in note 16, book 3, of the Affairs of Mainz. And in the Supreme Pontiffs, this is now a solemn change [of name] (concerning which [see] Polydore and Ranulph in the places cited) — derived, namely, from His [Christ’s] own example, who named Simon, Cephas or Peter (as I touched on above), so that, as [there was] a change of name, so [there was] a change of the man. “From the words,” says St. Jerome (on Jeremiah 23), “and the interpretation of names, things are often shown” — as [when] the changed appellations of Abraham, of Sara, of Peter, and of the sons of Zebedee signify a change of things. Certainly, for honor’s sake, the Priest of Ephesian Diana — even though before he was Pyrrhus or Dromo — was afterward called Megacles, Megabyzus, Protarchus, as the Scholiast noted on Xenophon in [Diogenes] Laertius. And to those who were consecrated [deified], a new name was assigned, so that — [once] invoked and received among the Gods — it was forbidden to utter [the old] name; and all passed by the temples of the heroes in silence, as Gothofredus notes on Livy (book 1).
Now the Babylonian and Assyrian Kings, with the new majesty of empire — as [they put off] the old garments of private persons, so also they put off [their] names, as Scaliger discusses (book 6 of the Emendations); and the infant to whom the surname Thurinus had been given was, in course of time, Augustus Caesar (Suetonius relating it); and the Emperor Zeno, before Ariomesius (Nicephorus, book 15, chapter 27); the Empress Eudocia, before Athenais (Paul the Deacon, Miscellany, book 13) — all, namely, either to rouse themselves by a new name to better and greater [things], or, some of them perhaps, to increase their own dignity and fame. Herodian, in [the life of] Heliogabalus: “Alexianus, son of Mammaea, the ancestral name being changed into the name of the Macedonian king, was called Alexander” — for fame had greatly honored that king [Alexander the Great], famous of himself. The wife of Philip, King of the Macedonians, Olympias, when she was a little girl, was called Myrthale, as Justin says (book 9).
And to nearly the same [purpose] look all those who impose new names on other men; but with this distinction: that the good and wise always [look to] the good — partly of him whose name is in question, partly of others; but the bad, and the less wise,
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[look to] laughter, sometimes contempt, or [mere] chance — as in Plautus, many trifling [name-changes]; as [the character] who said in the Pseudolus: “May I abound in grain, so that the city may change my name for me, and that you may proclaim me — from Ballio, a Pander — King Jason.” And in the Amphitruo: “I am badly afraid, lest I here should change my name, and become Quintus out of Sosia.” A certain Centurion was called “Give-me-the-rod?”; one of the Kings of the Egyptians, Doso. And somewhere, in these past years, I have heard this distich tossed about:
“Do [I-give] has lately changed his name with a Prince: the King has the name Do; Do takes up Accipio [I-receive].”
Phassur, the Priest [in] Jeremiah 20, [was renamed] Magor afterward. Priam [was] before Podarces (Eustathius, on Iliad 1). Achilles, in Apollodorus (book 3), had been named Ligyras by his father; and his herald Homer was once Melesigenes (Heliodorus, book 3, and Plutarch in his life). Plato — the habit of his body gave him the surname, says Apuleius (at the beginning of the book On the Doctrines of Plato), for he had before been named Aristocles. Tarquinius was before called Lucumo (Strabo, book 5). The Massilian woman Belsa, afterward Aristoxena; Milto, Aspasia; Melita, Mania; Charitoblepharos, Lampeto (as Athenaeus relates, book 13). Diocletian, says [Aurelius] Victor, until he took the empire, was called Diocles; when he seized the power of the Roman world, he changed the Greek name into the Roman fashion.
But this [next] is common — as our Reverend Father Alphonsus Salmerón teaches (in the Evangelical prolegomena, published not long ago): that to give new appellations to some (which should indeed be held valid) is reckoned a proof of power and dominion. So masters of old gave to their slaves whatever names they pleased — whence [names like] Quinctipor, Publipor, and the like (Politian, Miscellany, chapter 31); nay, when they gave them liberty, they adorned them with their own name too, either with the addition of some syllable, or simply, as Sigonius affirms (in the book On Roman Names). Hence, in Gellius (book 17, last chapter), Livius Andronicus; in Cicero (book 4, to Atticus, epistle 14), M. T. Tiro, M. T. Laurea. And [so] for those who were adopted (Dio, books 40 & 46); for those presented with citizenship (Cicero, To Friends 3, epistle 36; Caesar, book 1 On the Gallic War); for those who passed into another family (the same Cicero, book 2 On the Laws); for those written [in] as heirs (Cicero, book 7 to Atticus, epistle 8; Ovid, book 15 of the Metamorphoses; Brissonius, book 7 On the Formulae). So, in Spartianus, the Emperor Severus wishes his brother to be called no longer Bassianus, but Aurelius Antoninus; Theodosius [renamed] his wife — not Athenais, but Eudocia (Nicephorus, book 14, chapter 24). And in these divine books [Scripture] — was not Joseph called by the Egyptian Pharaoh Zaphnath-paaneah (Genesis 41, verse 45)? [Was not] Eliakim, son of Josiah, [called] Jehoiakim by [Pharaoh] Necho (4 Kings [2 Kings] 23, verse 34)? [And] Mattaniah, uncle of this Jehoiakim, [called] Zedekiah by Nebuchadnezzar (in the same book, chapter 24, verse 17)? [And] by the overseer of the Babylonian eunuchs, [were not] Daniel, Ananias, Misael, and Azarias [called] Baltassar, Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago (Daniel 1, verse 7)? To Henry II, King of the French, certain difficult names of some nobles were displeasing, and therefore he wished to change them, as [is] written by Michel de Montaigne (book 1, chapter 46), where [there are] also many other [things] about names. These [changes] are in the power of those who hold the dominion over certain things. (Moses says…
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…in the power of those who hold the dominion over certain things. (Moses Bar-Cepha says, in [his] Commentary, part 1, chapter last:) “By whatever names they will, they reckon those things [as theirs], just as an owner [reckons] those which he possesses.” And St. Jerome relates the same on chapter 1 of Daniel; and it is clearly gathered from Genesis 2, verse 19 [Adam naming the animals]. This cause is also common to the holy Angels and to God Himself — nay, [it is] the more proper to Him, the truer Lord He is; and likewise [with regard to] all the other good ends, whether they look to the doctrine and usefulness of him who is named or of any other whatsoever — [it is] the more [His], the wiser and better He is, and inasmuch as He is Wisdom and Goodness itself. And therefore, to show what He Himself is, and what [He wills] for His servants, or what He wills to do for others through them, He gives, takes away, [and] changes names. St. Jerome, on Daniel chapter 1: “The Lord,” he says, “changes the ancient names into a good part [sense], and from things imposes appellations of virtues — as Abram, Sara. In the Gospel too, Simon received the name of Peter.” St. Chrysostom (homily 18 on John): “He called Simon, Peter; but James and John, the sons of thunder. Why? That He might show Himself to be the same [God] who gave the Old Testament. It is He who fittingly imposes names — who called Abram, Abraham, and Sarai, Sara, [and] Jacob, Israel.” To many He gave names from birth — as Isaac, Samson, and those whom Isaiah and Hosea mention. To some He changed the appellation which they had received from [their] parents — as [with] the aforesaid, and [with] Jesus [Joshua]. It was also an ancient custom that names be imposed from things — which Elias too did; but this is not done rashly, but so that that appellation may be imposed which is a perpetual monument of a divine benefit, and [so that] the memory of it may be impressed, through the aforesaid names, on the minds of hearers. But after the death of Sara, there was a [second] wife of Abraham, concerning whom, in the Questions on Genesis, St. Jerome [says] thus: “Cetura [Keturah], in the Hebrew tongue, is interpreted ‘joined’ or ‘united.’ For which cause the Hebrews suspect that she is the same as Agar [Hagar], with the name changed — [she] who, Sara being dead, passed from concubine into wife.” So indeed. This is a conjecture of the Jews, as R. Eliezer shows (chapter 30); yet he gives two other causes of the changed name: one, that she was mekutera miccol mine besamim — that is, furnished and steeped with every kind of aromatics and perfumes; the other, that mahescha nahim cakketoreth — that is, [that] her good and pleasant works were like incense and spice.