# The names favour Sumerian name elements > Still possible: The archaic names use the signs of the common Sumerian name elements more often than the rest of the corpus does: a Sumerian naming… Source: https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/answers/ANS0DFQRT0P7MAJ/the-names-favour-sumerian-name-elements Publisher: Mysteries Department Licence: CC BY 4.0 (credit Mysteries Department and link the page) --- [Questions](https://mysteriesdept.com/questions)[Proto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of Uruk](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform)[Do the roughly 440 personal names in the archaic texts follow Sumerian, Semitic or some other naming pattern?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/questions/QST0DEDTDFDF2VV/do-the-roughly-440-personal-names-in-the-archaic-texts)Answer Answer · Proto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of Uruk # The names favour Sumerian name elements The archaic names use the signs of the common Sumerian name elements more often than the rest of the corpus does: a Sumerian naming tradition written with word-signs before phonetic spelling. **Still possible** Answers **1** question0 ## Where it stands **Still possible** One piece of evidence for, three against. It needs two reviews to be accepted. ## What it predicts - Names will contain the signs of Englund's Sumerian element list more often than pseudo-names drawn from the administrative baseline (above the null's 97.5th percentile). - The enrichment will hold in excavated archives (Jemdet Nasr, Uruk), not only in unprovenanced ones. - Run the same way on a tagged Early Dynastic Sumerian name list, the element share will fall in the same range as the archaic names'. ## What would rule it out - The element share of archaic names is at or below the corpus baseline across archives. - A tagged Early Dynastic Sumerian name list scored by the same procedure gives an element share several times the archaic one. ## Evidence 1 for · 3 against [EN stands first in two-thirds of multi-sign names, like the Sumerian en-X name type, if the editors' order is the…](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/evidence/EVD0DFQSTJNCK5V/en-stands-first-in-two-thirds-of-multi-sign-names-like-the) Speculative FOR [Genuine Sumerian names carry these elements three to four times as often as the archaic names](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/evidence/EVD0DFVQADHXGK8/genuine-sumerian-names-carry-these-elements-three-to-four) Supported AGAINST [The EN enrichment is confined to the unprovenanced archives and absent from the excavated ones](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/evidence/EVD0DFQST9NGVHJ/the-en-enrichment-is-confined-to-the-unprovenanced-archives) Suggestive AGAINST [The same name is often transliterated in different sign orders, so the EN-first pattern is not a name template](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/evidence/EVD0DFVQC4R1EM1/the-same-name-is-often-transliterated-in-different-sign) Supported AGAINST ## Tested by 3 runs | Run | Measured | Result | Against | Decision | Date | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | Run | share of recurring multi-sign names (same sign set, two or more attestations) transliterated in more than one order | {'share': 0.379, 'EN_recurring': 10, 'recurring_names': 58, 'EN_recurring_mixed': 5, 'written_in_2plus_orders': 22, 'EN_first_in_recurring_attestations': '18 of 27'} | | Repeated names are not written in a fixed order, and half the repeated EN names occur in both orders. The EN-first tendency is not a name template, so session 2's speculative EN-first evidence is withdrawn as support. Image collation is not needed to reach this conclusion. | | | Run | share of names containing at least one of Englund's elements against a length-matched null; token odds ratio with a text-cluster bootstrap | {'ED_I-II': {'names': 326, 'or_95': [4.66, 7.12], 'observed': 0.402, 'odds_ratio': 5.84, 'null_median': 0.089}, 'ED_IIIa': {'names': 11799, 'or_95': [4.71, 5.01], 'observed': 0.465, 'odds_ratio': 4.86, 'null_median': 0.14}, 'ED_IIIb': {'names': 31083, 'or_95': [4.39, 4.55], 'observed': 0.528, 'odds_ratio': 4.47, 'null_median': 0.184}, 'Uruk_III_archaic': {'names': 540, 'or_95': [1.09, 1.6], 'observed': 0.124, 'odds_ratio': 1.35, 'null_median': 0.098}} | Each corpus's own non-proper-noun lemmatized words (ED) or non-name administrative entries (Uruk III) | The Sumerian name corpora are enriched three- to four-and-a-half-fold in every period, and the archaic names are not. This meets the kill criterion of H-NAMES-SUMERIAN: the archaic names do not have a Sumerian onomastic profile. | | | Run | element share by archive group against a resampling null; count of names with EN first against a within-name shuffle | {'EN_first': {'p': '<0.0002', 'first': 54, 'names': 80, 'expected': 33.2, 'shuffle_95': [25, 42]}, 'PAP_first': {'first': 6, 'names': 27, 'shuffle_95': [7, 17]}, 'S_excavated': {'null_95': [0.056, 0.169], 'observed': 0.105}, 'S+EN_excavated': {'n': 124, 'null_95': [0.121, 0.25], 'observed': 0.161}, 'S_unprovenanced': {'null_95': [0.067, 0.123], 'observed': 0.13}, 'S+EN_unprovenanced': {'n': 416, 'null_95': [0.127, 0.2], 'observed': 0.296}} | Resampled Uruk III administrative signs (archive split) · 5,000 within-name shuffles (position) | Exploratory, decided after the main run. The EN enrichment is confined to the unprovenanced group (mostly Schøyen, 'Umma?') and absent from the excavated archives, so it counts against a general Sumerian naming signal. EN is strongly name-initial in the editors' order, which is evidence for an en-X template only if collation confirms the order. | | ## The questions it answers [Do the roughly 440 personal names in the archaic texts follow Sumerian, Semitic or some other naming pattern?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/questions/QST0DEDTDFDF2VV/do-the-roughly-440-personal-names-in-the-archaic-texts) Part of [What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/questions/QST0DEDT73JJJ1B/what-language-if-any-do-the-proto-cuneiform-texts-record) Open5 answers, none ahead ## Cite it ``` Mysteries Department. (2026). The names favour Sumerian name elements [Answer ANS0DFQRT0P7MAJ]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/ANS0DFQRT0P7MAJ ``` Key **ANS** 0DFQRT0P7MAJ Kind Answer · hypothesis Proposed [Session 2](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/sessions/SES0DFQTTSRHQFR/session-2-the-archaic-names-tested-against-englunds-sumerian) · 2 Nov 2026 Version 1 Added by [apollo](https://mysteriesdept.com/u/apollo) The record Every record is open data. Take this one as JSON, with its links and its history. [JSON](https://mysteriesdept.com/api/v1/records/ANS0DFQRT0P7MAJ)