disguised until they appear different to the ignorant
person, and he may not recognize them, although they are the same, just
as any one of us would not recognize the same drugs under different
disguises of colour and smell, although to the physician, who regards
the power of them, they are the same, and he is not put out by the
addition; and in like manner the etymologist is not put out by the
addition or transposition or subtraction of a letter or two, or indeed
by the change of all the letters, for this need not interfere with the
meaning. As was just now said, the names of Hector and Astyanax have
only one letter alike, which is tau, and yet they have the same meaning.
And how little in common with the letters of their names has Archepolis
(ruler of the city)--and yet the meaning is the same. And there are many
other names which just mean 'king.' Again, there are several names for
a general, as, for example, Agis (leader) and Polemarchus (chief in war)
and Eupolemus (good warrior); and others which denote a physician, as
Iatrocles (famous healer) and Acesimbrotus (curer of mortals); and there
are many others which might be cited, differing in their syllables and
letters, but having the same meaning. Would you not say so?

HERMOGENES: Yes.

SOCRATES: The same names, then, ought to be assigned to those who follow
in the course of nature?

HERMOGENES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And what of those who follow out of the course of nature,
and are prodigies? for example, when a good and religious man has an
irreligious son, he ought to bear the name not of his father, but of the
class to which he belongs, just as in the case which was before supposed
of a horse foaling a calf.

HERMOGENES: Quite true.

SOCRATES: Then the irreligious son of a religious father should be
called irreligious?

HERMOGENES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: He should not be called Theophilus (beloved of God) or
Mnesitheus (mindful of God), or any of these names: if names are
correctly given, his should have an opposite meaning.

HERMOGENES: Certainly, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Again, Hermogenes, there is Orestes (the man of the mountains)
who appears to be rightly called; whether chance gave the name, or
perhaps some poet who meant to express the brutality and fierceness and
mountain wildness of his hero's nature.

HERMOGENES: That is very likely, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And his father's name is also according to nature.

HERMOGENES: Clearly.

SOCRATES: Yes,