(Ri-)definire la propria identità nel mondo greco-romano. Il ruolo dell'onomastica

The multilingual and multicultural complexity of the Classical World provides many illustrative case studies for investigating the multi-layered relationship between culture, ethnicity, personal identity, and language behaviour. Language plays a major role as a marker of social identity, especially when speakers are conscious of their membership of different communities. In particular, as a consequence of their highly symbolic value, proper names are deemed important badges of personal identity. A few selected examples are discussed here in order to illustrate that name changing is a primary linguistic strategy for conveying multiple and changing identities.