Diversity statistics of onomastic data reveal social patterns in Hebrew Kingdoms of the Iron Age
Edited by Elsa Redmond, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY; received February 18, 2025; accepted April 9, 2025
Significance
This paper introduces an application of diversity statistics to analyze ancient personal names, providing insights into the social dynamics of the Hebrew Kingdoms during the Iron Age II period (950–586 BCE). Our research shows that applying ecological diversity measures to onomastic data reveals higher name diversity in the Kingdom of Israel compared to Judah, suggesting a more cosmopolitan society, while also demonstrating a decrease in name diversity in late-period Judah that may reflect significant sociopolitical changes.
Abstract
The distribution of personal names provides unique, yet often overlooked, insight into modern and historical societies. This study employs diversity statistics—commonly used in ecology—to analyze onomastic data from Iron Age II archaeological excavations in the Southern Levant (950–586 BCE). Our findings reveal higher onomastic diversity in the Kingdom of Israel compared to Judah, suggesting a more cosmopolitan society. We also observe a decrease in name diversity in Judah over time, potentially reflecting sociopolitical changes. Center/periphery analysis shows contrasting patterns in Israel and Judah. These results provide insights into social dynamics, cultural interactions, and identity formation in these ancient societies. Our methodology, validated using supplementary archaeological data, as well as modern datasets, offers a robust framework for applying diversity statistics across various modern and historical contexts.
Get full access to this article
Purchase, subscribe or recommend this article to your librarian.
Data, Materials, and Software Availability
Onomasticon and code data have been deposited in GitHub [https://www.onomasticon.net (38); https://github.com/ariel-vishne/names (51)].
Acknowledgments
We thank Mr. Jacques Chahine (French Friends of Tel Aviv University) for help throughout this work. Editing of the manuscript was assisted by AI chatbots (Claude; ChatGPT).
Author contributions
A.V., M.R.G., E.P., I.F., and B.S. conceptualized the research; A.V., M.R.G., I.F. curated the data; A.V. and B.S. designed the methodology; A.V. performed the analysis; A.V. and B.S. wrote the original draft; A.V., M.R.G., E.P., I.F., and B.S. edited the paper; and A.V. and B.S. wrote the paper.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interest.
Supporting Information
Appendix 01 (PDF)
- Download
- 12.91 MB
References
1
H. J. Nissen, P. Damerow, R. K. Englund, Archaic Bookkeeping: Early Writing and Techniques of Economic Administration in the Ancient Near East (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1993).
2
T. Levy, T. Higham, The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating: Archaeology, Text and Science (Equinox Publishing, London, 2005).
3
I. Finkelstein, A. Mazar, B. Schmidt, The Quest for the Historical Israel: Debating Archaeology and the History of Early Israel (Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta, 2007).
4
K. Schmid, J. Schröter, P. Lewis, The Making of the Bible: From the First Fragments to Sacred Scripture (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2021).
5
I. Finkelstein, N. A. Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (Free Press, New York, 2001).
6
I. Finkelstein, “A low chronology update: Archaeology, history, and Bible” in The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating: Archaeology, Text and Science, T. Levy, T. Higham, Eds. (Equinox Publishing, London, 2005), pp. 31–42.
7
R. Albertz, R. Schmitt, Family and Household Religion in Ancient Israel and the Levant (Winona Lake, 2012).
8
F. I. Andersen, R. S. Hess, Names in the Study of Biblical History: David, Yhwh Names, and the Role of Personal Names (Australian Institute of Archaeology, 2007).
9
M. R. Golub, In the name of the father: Patronyms in Iron Age II Hebrew epigraphy. Israel Exploration J. 70, 36–48 (2020).
10
G. B. Gray, Studies in Hebrew Proper Names (A. and C. Black, London, 1896).
11
S. C. Layton, Archaic Features of Canaanite Personal Names in the Hebrew Bible (Scholars Press, Atlanta, 1990).
12
J. H. Tigay, You Shall Have No Other Gods: Israelite Religion in the Light of Hebrew Inscriptions (Scholars Press, Atlanta, 1986).
13
J. D. Fowler, Theophoric Personal Names in Ancient Hebrew: A Comparative Study (JSOT, Sheffield, 1988).
14
M. R. Golub, Israelite and Judean theophoric personal names in the hebrew bible in the light of the archaeological evidence. Ancient Near Eastern Studies 54, 35–46 (2017).
15
M. R. Golub, A. Mendel-Geberovich, Cherchez la Femme: Ancient Israelite women’s religion in light of their personal names. Orientalia Suecana 73, 142–153 (2024).
16
E. Tov, “Orthographic Practices in the Biblical Texts” in Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, Septuagint, E. Tov, Ed. (Brill, Leiden, 2021), pp. 329–348.
17
C. A. Rollston, Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel (Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta, 2010).
18
S. Faigenbaum-Golovin et al., Algorithmic handwriting analysis of Judah’s military correspondence sheds light on composition of biblical texts. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 113, 4664–4669 (2016).
19
A. Chao, C.-H. Chiu, “Species richness: Estimation and comparison” in Wiley StatsRef: Statistics Reference Online, N. Balakrishnan et al. Ed. (2016). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118445112.stat03432.pub2.
20
I. J. Good, The population frequencies of species and the estimation of population parameters. Biometrika 40, 237–264 (1953).
21
A. Chao et al., Seen once or more than once: Applying Good-Turing theory to estimate species richness using only unique observations and a species list. Methods Ecol. Evol. 8, 1221–1232 (2017).
22
A. Chao, Nonparametric estimation of the number of classes in a population. Scand Stat. Theory Appl. 11, 265–270 (1984).
23
M. Kestemont et al., Forgotten books: The application of unseen species models to the survival of culture. Science 375, 766–769 (2022).
24
M. S. Cuthbert, Tipping the iceberg: Missing Italian polyphony from the Age of Schism. Musica Disciplina 54, 39–74 (2009).
25
B. Efron, R. Thisted, Estimating the number of unseen species: How many words did Shakespeare know? Biometrika 63, 435–447 (1976).
26
M. I. Eren et al., Estimating the richness of a population when the maximum number of classes is fixed: A nonparametric solution to an archaeological problem. PLoS ONE 7, 5 (2012), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0034179.
27
R. K. Colwell, A. Chao, “Defining and measuring diversity in archaeology: Another step toward an evolutionary synthesis of culture” in Measuring and Comparing Class Diversity in Archaeological Assemblages: A Brief Guide to the History and State-of-the-Art in Diversity Statistics, M. I. Eren, B. Buchanan, Eds. (2022), pp. 263–294.
28
A. Feuerverger, Statistical analysis of an archeological find. Ann. Appl. Stat. 2, 3–54 (2008).
29
French Baby Names: Names given to French babies between 1900 and 2018 [Online]. https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/haezer/french-baby-names.
30
M. O. Hill, Diversity and evenness: A unifying notation and its consequences. Ecology 54, 427–432 (1973).
31
A. M. Ellison, Partitioning diversity. Ecology 91, 1962–1963 (2010).
32
A. E. Magurran, B. J. McGill, Biological Diversity: Frontiers in Measurement and Assessment (Oxford University Press, 2011).
33
C. E. Shannon, A mathematical theory of communication. The Bell Syst. Technical J. 27, 623–656 (1948).
34
A. Chao, C.-H. Chiu, L. Jost, Unifying species diversity, phylogenetic diversity, functional diversity, and related similarity and differentiation measures through Hill numbers. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 45, 297–324 (2014).
35
A. Chao, C. Ricotta, Quantifying evenness and linking it to diversity, beta diversity, and similarity. Ecology 100, e02852 (2019).
36
A. Chao et al., Quantifying sample completeness and comparing diversities among assemblages. Ecol. Res. 35, 292–314 (2020).
37
M. Golub, The distribution of personal names in the Land of Israel and Transjordan during the Iron II period. J. Am. Orient Soc. 134, 621–642 (2014).
38
M. R. Golub, Onomasticon.net: Personal Names from the Iron II Southern Levant. (2023). http://www.onomasticon.net/. Accessed 1 July 2023.
39
I. Finkelstein, The Forgotten Kingdom: The Archaeology and History of Northern Israel (Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta, 2013).
40
T. Römer, The Invention of God, R. Geuss, Trans (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2015).
41
I. Finkelstein, Migration of Israelites into Judah after 720 BCE: An answer and an update. Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 127, 188–206 (2015).
42
Personal Names of Israelis by Year of Birth, Religion and Gender, 1948–2021. Israel Central Bureau of Statistics [Online]. (2022). https://www.cbs.gov.il/he/Pages/search/TableMaps.aspx?CbsSubject=%D7%A9%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%AA. Accessed 14 June 2024.
43
Popular Baby Names: Beyond the Top 1000 Names. Social Security Administration [Online]. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/limits.html. Accessed 21 July 2024.
44
Baby Names in England and Wales: 2021. Office for National Statistics [Online]. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/babynamesenglandandwales/2021. Accessed 21 July 2024.
45
Most Popular Baby Names (1944–2013). Data South Australia [Online]. https://data.sa.gov.au/data/dataset/popular-baby-names/resource/534d13f2-237c-4448-a6a3-93c07b1bb614. Accessed 21 July 2024.
46
I. Finkelstein, Population of Palestine in Iron Age II. Bull. Am. Schools Orient Res. 287, 47–60 (1992).
47
N. Na’aman, Dismissing the myth of a flood of Israelite refugees in the late eighth century. Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 126, 1–14 (2014).
48
N. Xi et al., Cultural evolution: The case of babies’ first names. Phys. A 406 139–144 (2014).
49
S. J. Bush, A. Powell-Smith, T. C. Freeman, Network analysis of the social and demographic influences on name choice within the UK (1838–2016). PLoS ONE 13, 10 (2018).
50
P. Barucca et al., Cross-correlations of American baby names. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 112, 7943–7947 (2015).
51
A. Vishne, “Supporting code for onomastic diversity for iron age II southern levant analysis”. GitHub. https://github.com/ariel-vishne/names. Deposited 31 December 2024.
Information & Authors
Information
Published in
Classifications
Copyright
Copyright © 2025 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. This article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).
Data, Materials, and Software Availability
Onomasticon and code data have been deposited in GitHub [https://www.onomasticon.net (38); https://github.com/ariel-vishne/names (51)].
Submission history
Received: February 18, 2025
Accepted: April 9, 2025
Published online: May 14, 2025
Published in issue: May 20, 2025
Keywords
Acknowledgments
We thank Mr. Jacques Chahine (French Friends of Tel Aviv University) for help throughout this work. Editing of the manuscript was assisted by AI chatbots (Claude; ChatGPT).
Author contributions
A.V., M.R.G., E.P., I.F., and B.S. conceptualized the research; A.V., M.R.G., I.F. curated the data; A.V. and B.S. designed the methodology; A.V. performed the analysis; A.V. and B.S. wrote the original draft; A.V., M.R.G., E.P., I.F., and B.S. edited the paper; and A.V. and B.S. wrote the paper.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interest.
Notes
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
*
These names are included alongside other Iron Age II personal names from the Southern Levant on the open-access website www.onomasticon.net. Special thanks to Itay Zandbank, CEO of the Research Software Company, for developing and maintaining this website.
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Altmetrics
Citations
Cite this article
Diversity statistics of onomastic data reveal social patterns in Hebrew Kingdoms of the Iron Age, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.
122 (20) e2503850122,
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2503850122
(2025).
Copied!
Copying failed.
Export the article citation data by selecting a format from the list below and clicking Export.
View Options
Login options
Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.
Personal login Institutional LoginRecommend to a librarian
Recommend PNAS to a LibrarianPurchase options
Purchase this article to access the full text.
Restore content access
View options
PDF format
Download this article as a PDF file
DOWNLOAD PDF