Humans started giving each other names in prehistoric times. But who's the earliest person whose name we know today?
It was an ancient Egyptian king.
Some experts list "Iryhor" as the earliest Egyptian king. This name, meaning "belonging to the god Horus," was found on objects in a tomb built around 3150 B.C. Other experts think this just meant the objects belonged to the royal treasury, and "Iryhor" wasn't a person.
Another tomb at Abydos, where the earliest Egyptian kings were buried, has objects labeled with "Ka," the word meaning "spark of life," carved similarly but not identically to later kings' names. Some believe Ka was a king around 3125 B.C. Others claim Ka here isn't a name at all.
Narmer, whom the Egyptians called their first king, is the earliest named person everyone agrees really existed. Narmer, meaning "striker," fits his best-known picture, where he's clubbing an enemy's head. He lived around 3100 B.C.
The exhibit "To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum" starts Saturday at the Joslyn Art Museum. A featured statue, "The Bird Lady," is at least two centuries older than Narmer.
A relief of Queen Neferu, wife of Pharaoh Mentuhotep II, also is in the exhibit. Mentuhotep reunified Egypt around 2055 B.C. His name means "Montu (the god of war) is satisfied."
Neferu's own name meant "beauty." Other queens had similar names. Nefertiti, "the beautiful one has come," was wife of the heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten around 1350 B.C. Nefertari, "most beautiful," was the favorite wife of Egypt's greatest pharaoh, Ramesses II, who ruled 1279 to 1213 B.C.
The mummy in Joslyn's exhibit is named Demetrios. He died in 39 A.D., during the reign of Cleopatra the Great, last independent ruler of Egypt before the Roman conquest.
Cleopatra was a Ptolemy, descended from the Greek who took over Egypt after Alexander the Great died. Her Greek name meant "glory of the father." Demetrios also is Greek, meaning "belonging to Demeter," goddess of fertility.
The title pharaoh meant "great house" or "royal palace." It was used for the king in the same way we say "The White House" to mean "the president's administration."
After the Protestant reformation, some parents began naming sons Pharaoh. Men named Pharaoh headed three households in the 1790 U.S. census. In 1850, the first census that gives all residents' names, 83 Pharaohs or Pharoahs lived in this country.
Cleopatra is the Egyptian ruler with the most American namesakes. Few women were heads of households in 1790, but Cleopatra Jagger of Long Island, N.Y., was one of them. In 1930, the most recent year full census data is available, there were 813 Cleopatras, including Cleopatra Zaruba of Omaha.
Some babies still get Egyptian names. In 2010, 40 were named Pharaoh or Pharoah, along with thirteen Cleopatras. Parents searching out African names for daughters named 11 Nefertiti and eight Nefertari.
The country Narmer unified 5,000 years ago has more American namesakes than any of its kings or queens. In 2010, 100 girls and five boys were named Egypt.
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