itten phonetically in whole or part in one instance and
ideographically in another. Certain classes of names being explained in
this way, legitimate and fairly reliable conclusions can be drawn for many
others belonging to the same class or group. The proper names of the
numerous business documents of the Khammurabi period, when phonetic writing
was the fashion, have been of special value in resolving doubts as to the
correct reading of names written ideographically. Thus names like
_Sin-na-di-in-shu-mi_ and _Bel-na-di-in-shu-mi_, _i.e._ "Sin is the giver
of a name" (_i.e._ offspring), and "Bel is the giver of a name," form the
model for names with deities as the first element followed by MU-MU, even
though the model may not be consistently followed in all cases. In
historical texts also variant readings occur in considerable number. Thus,
to take a classic example, the name of the famous king Nebuchadrezzar
occurs written in the following different manners:--(a)
_Na-bi-um-ku-du-ur-ri-u-[s.]u-ur_, (b) AK-DU-_u-[s.]u-ur_, (c)
AK-_ku-dur-ri_-SHES, and (d) PA-GAR-DU-SHES, from which we are permitted to
conclude that PA or AK (with the determinative for deity AN) = _Na-bi-um_
or Nebo, that GAR-DU or DU alone = _kudurri_, and that SHES =
_u[s.][s.]ur_. The second element signifies "boundary" or "territory"; the
third element is the imperative of _nasaru_, "protect"; so that the whole
name signifies, "O, Nebo! protect my boundary" (or "my territory").

It is not the purpose of this note to set forth the principles underlying
the formation of proper names among the Babylonians and Assyrians, but it
may not be out of place to indicate that by the side of such full names,
containing three elements (or even more), we have already at an early
period the reduction of these elements to two through the combination of
the name of a deity with a verbal form merely, or through the omission of
the name of the deity. From such names it is only a step to names of one
element, a characteristic feature of which is the frequent addition of an
ending _-tum_ (feminine), _[=a]n_, _[=a]_, _um_, _atum_, _atija_, _sha,_
&c., most of these being "hypocoristic affixes," corresponding in a measure
to modern pet-names.

Lastly, a word about genuine or pseudo-Sumerian names. In the case of texts
from the oldest historical periods we encounter hundreds of names that are
genuinely Sumerian, and here in view of the multiplicity of the phonetic
values attac