Re: Philip of Macedon

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Gordon Barlow" <barlow@...> wrote:

> Here is a question asked out of ignorance, which I hope one of the

leaned

> members of our august List will be kind enough to answer. I have

see King

> Philip's name explained (in transliteration, of course) as

"fil-hippo" or

> similar, meaning "lover of horses". That looks like pure

folk-etymology to

> me - at the very best!. Is there any genuinely credible evidence

that he

> was given his name for that reason? Were kings of the period and

of the

> region called by their personal names, anyway, or were they called

by

> titles, perhaps? I ask the same of his son Alexander - or

"Alek-sander" as

> I have seen it in an English transliteration. The latter does look

vaguely

> like a title from earlier times, to me, and the former looks like
> folk-etymology at work again. Any opinions on the List?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Gordon Barlow

********
"Horse" compound names are characteristically Indo-European,
so I don't see any reason to doubt the obvious etymology. Of course
by the time of the Macedonian monarchy, it was probably a traditional
name applied to a baby with little more thought as to its meaning than
a Philip would get these days.
The matter is a bit different with Alexander. The Macedonian
presumably got his name after Alexander of Troy aka Paris. A Hittite
document famously refers to Aleksandus of Wilusa somewhere to the
Northwest, who is generally accepted as an Alexander of Ilion. If
so,(and if it was not adopted from elsewhere by the Trojans) an
etymology should be looked for in the language of Troy, which
according to Watkins was Luvian. Greek "warder off of men" or
something of the sort would be folk etymology then.
Dan Milton