Talk:Etymology of the name of Julius Caesar

Bald?

"from caesaries, 'hair', because the founder of this branch of the family was born with a full head of hair. (Julius Caesar himself was balding in later life.) This is the etymology favored by Festus. "

Who came up wiht this? Caesar was actually claimed to be derived from early family baldness; it's sarcasm ,"hairy", like a cognomen would be mostly.

Also, the¨point about "the slayer" should be added. Ca(e)dere means: to slay/massacre in Latin.

--83.80.233.224 (talk) 00:45, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Two points about this:

"This story is probably untrue, as the name "Caesar" had already been in the family for generations before the famous Caesar's birth, without even considering the medical likelihood of a successful Caesarean section having been performed in 100 BC."

First, Caesarean sections name maybe has his origins from Caesar, so doesn't matter if the name has been in the family in previous generations, this is obvious. Second, the legend says that the Caesar mother died when pregnant and then somebody did the Caesarean section to get Caesar out of the died body, so the medical likehood is probable. I dont know if the legend is true or about his proofs, but I think that this paragraph must be changed.

This article also says:

>>the Rosetta Stone contains a hieroglyphic cartouche transcribed as "k-e-s-r-s" and supposed to be related to the Latin sense.

However, myself and others have been though the text and can find no such reference. Can someone please indicate if this is true or not, and where on the text such a cartouche is to be found? ralf.ellis@virgin.net

Shah?

What's the source for the Persian shah being derived from Caesar? From everything I can find (in sources both offline and on), it comes from the Old Persian xšāyaθiya and is in now way related to Caesar. I've never even heard that theory before. --Patrick T. Wynne 09:20, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

• You're right. Shah has been used since the days of Cyrus the Great, centuries before Ceasar. --Countakeshi 01:55, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

references needed

removed:

Other derivations suggest that the root of the name may not be of Latin origin; the Rosetta Stone contains a hieroglyphic cartouche transcribed as "k-e-s-r-s" and supposed to be related to the Latin sense. Another suggested foreign derivation is the Persian Kasrá (pl. Akásirah), the title of four great dynasties of Persian kings, via Ahasuerus (i.e., Khshayarsha, better known as Xerxes I, the grandson of Cyrus the Great); eventual relationship between kisri and kasrá is seen as less meaningful, mostly referred to later times (Sassanides).

because it needs references. Even if there's such a cartouche on the Rosetta Stone (and there is reason to doubt this assertion), who thinks that the Egyptian name is the origin of the Roman? Who thinks it's more than a coincidence?

Similarly, who suggests the Persian derivation? How do they think an old Persian word became a Latin family name? Does the meaning of the Persian word remotely resemble any of the theorized meanings of the Latin? Does the Persian word even sound anything like Caesar, or does it just look similar when romanized?

I couldn't find a reliable reference for these theories; if anyone turns one up they should of course restore the text. —Charles P.  (Mirv) 19:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

oh dear. these were first added to Julius Caesar in March 2002 (without reference, needless to say) and were just removed, so they've been in search engine results for almost four years. Any outside reference will need to be dated before that time if it's to be considered credible. —Charles P.  (Mirv) 19:38, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

In subsequent times, some authors think that "Caesar" entered Eurasian folklore as Geser of Rūm or Khrom, Geser Khan, or, much later, Geser of Ling (after a province of eastern Tibet). Geser became a war god especially popular with central Asian military societies, known to have spread from the Seljuk Turks and Sassanid Persians to Tibetan, Mongolian, Manchu and eventually Chinese mythologies by the time of the Qing dynasty. Who are these authors? Recent archaelogy have disproven Gesar being Caesar. [1] I think this whole page should be merged with Caesar (title). --Countakeshi 12:20, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Elephant coin

It would be nice to have an image of this silver denarius featuring an elephant defeating a snake over the letters CAESAR. I do not find it in Commmons. --Error 04:55, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Transliteration

The article uses “KUY” as a transliteration for the first syllable of of CAESAR, saying it rhymes with “sky”, and “KAI” for the first syllable of Καίσαρ, saying it rhymes with “guy.” Are these supposed to represent different sounds? -Ahruman 17:29, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

No, the vowels (diphthongs, actually) in question are the same. In my opinion the article would be better off with just the IPA transliteration.

--Haruo 20:27, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Julius Caesar suggests [ˈgaːius ˈjuːlius ˈkaisar]. Apparently GAIUS should be pronounced in three syllables. I don't know Latin, so I'll have to leave it to other people to get this right. However, I've removed the ad hoc pronunciation as I think it can only serve to confuse the reader, especially non-native speakers of English. (Is "KUY" pronounced like Cuy?!) Hairy Dude 22:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it indeed seems that GAIUS should have three syllables (hence not [ˈgaːjus], which most think, nor [ˈgajjus], which I'm afraid I was responsible for). This is supported by Sidney Allen, Vox Latina, page 39, footnote 1. I have made the change. Alatius 13:41, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

A quick question. I think leaving in the IPA makes sense, but why is the IVLIVS pronounced "Ju-lee-us"? From what little Latin I had (3 semesters in college), it seems like it would be "You-lee-us" (like iuvo - "you-wo"). Is this is a mistake in the IPA or was there some classical exception for Iulius? Bdevoe 23:05, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Etymology of Julius? Where?

Although the article contains some theories on the etymology of "Caesar", there is nothing on the etymology of "Julius", which is what I was actually looking for when I came here. Further, most of the article is not on etymology at all, but on orthography and phonology and Roman naming customs. --Haruo 20:27, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite 9 Jan 08

The article as I found it was very bad. I cleaned up the core part of it.

• It is poor practice to adduce secondary and tertiary sources. I substituted the primary sources.
• The Historia Augusta does not favor any particular etymology, and it is a misrepresentation to claim only two of the derivations for it, apparently just because other earlier writers favor the two others.
• The repeated references to Kaiser, czar, etc. are irrelevant: they themselves derive from Caesar.
• Gerald Massey was a kook who derived hundreds of placenames in Great Britain from . . . ancient Egyptian. At any rate that link didn't work, nor, when I tracked down page 462, was there anything there about what the Wiki article stated.
• The other Google Books link didn't work either, and since the basic link was to The Comprehensive Dictionary of English and Hebrew First Names, in which nothing is said about "Caesar" deriving from "Sar". A search for "Caesar" in that book yields only the statement that "Sherry" is a "variant form of Caesarina, the feminine form of the Latin name Caesar, meaning 'king.'" — which begs the question, since Caesar may mean king (sort of) now, but not originally. It is not sufficient that Sar should mean "prince", nor that Khusar should mean "hero", to make the author of a book claim that Caesar derives from it; and even less so, of course, that the Wiki article should claim that it does.

The article as a whole really should be deleted and folded into Julius Caesar; it is also misnamed: I agree with the previous reader's comment that it misleads us into believing that the etymology of Julius will also be given. Finally, I left several minor points unfixed, more work to fix them than Wikipedia is worth: for example, that æ is just the same as ae. There's quite a bit of irrelevant stuff in the first part, and the writing could be tightened; but it's pointless doing that, since it'll all eventually be diluted and flattened out again by succeeding editors. Bill (talk) 13:15, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Merge Gaius Iulius Caesar (name) into this article

Note that there is a preexisting article on Etymology of the name of Julius Caesar. Should the two articles be merged? John M Baker (talk) 15:08, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

This merge was originally proposed in July 2009, which is now three years ago. The above comment was posted over on that talk page, but the discussion link on the merge tag goes here, so I am copying it over here. We really should wrap this up. I think a merge makes sense, and 'Etymology of the name of Julius Caesar' makes more sense for the article's name than 'Gaius Iulius Caesar (name)'. What do others think? WTF? (talk) 02:49, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the merge, but oppose calling a merged article "Etymology of etc" because the issues of naming aren't confined to etymology as such. If you take a second look at Gaius Iulius Caesar (name), you'll see that it deals with things such as official nomenclature, Roman naming convention, orthography, Latin morphology, and the like, not just etymology. Actually, the etymology article doesn't just deal with etymology, either. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:22, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Working through the backlog and find it is easier to just sort out these old merges. Merged Etymology into Gaius Iulius Caesar from Cynwolfes comment. AIRcorn (talk) 05:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)