Iranian Personal Names in Armenian Tradition

The number of Armenian personal names of Iranian origin is extremely large. Statistics show that ca. 25% of all Armenian personal names were taken over from Iranian languages. Iranian elements generally form the largest layer of the Armenian lexicon. They extend over a period of 2500 years: from Old Iranian, pre-Achaemenid times (ca. 7th6th centuries BCE) up to the present day. For centuries, Armenia was ruled by dynasties of the Iranian-speaking state-formations: by the great Kings of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, then by a collateral line of the Parthian Arsacid dynasty and by the Middle-Persian speaking ruling élite of the Sasanian Empire. Up to modern times, Armenia has belonged to the sphere of Iranian influence, as one of the crucial Iranianate cultures of Eurasia. The exploration of the Iranian names in Armenian is one of the most important parts of the linguistic history of both language groups, due to their large number and different historical strata: Many Iranian names and appellatives are not attested in the Iranian languages but known only thanks to the Armenian tradition. Surprisingly, after a promising start around 1895, these data have been treated in a sporadic and insufficient way, without Iranological evaluation, despite their high value for the linguistic and cultural history of Europe and the Middle East. The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) possesses a unique international centre of competence concerning Iranian Onomastics and Linguistics: The multi-volume project Iranisches Personennamen- buch in Vienna considers the research into Iranian names not only as a linguistic discipline but also as a highly relevant source of Cultural and Social History. In fact, authentic Iranian linguistic monuments reveal only a little part of the Old and Middle Iranian lexicon. Numerous words are transmitted only thanks to personal names in extra- or non-Iranian traditions. Thus, names attest linguistic, social, cultural contacts with peoples and religions through history in the areas concerned. The project on Iranian personal names in Armenian, to be carried on at the ÖAW, will take into account the progress in the studies of Iranian (Parthian and Middle Persian) onomastics in the last 60 years, due to new-found or newly edited texts: epigraphic documents with hundreds of Parthian names, inscriptions in Middle Persian, recently published Armenian manuscripts containing new onomastic evidence. The proposed collaborator Dr. Martirosyan, author of Brills Etymological Dictionary of Armenian, has high interdisciplinary qualifications in Comparative Armenian, Iranian and Indo-European Studies. Since the largest documentation on Iranian names is contained in published volumes and unpublished databases of the Iranisches Personennamenbuch, the Armenian project will benefit on synergy effects with the onomastic and lexicological projects at the Academy and the linguistic expertise of its authors and editors.