5am thoughts

[dhampyresa]

Why is it (Victor) Hugo, (Miguel) Cervantès, etc, but Dante (Alighieri)? Why are we all on a first name basis with a poet from the 1300s?

Comments

[misbegotten]

Family names weren't set things in the medieval period. I don't know much about the evolution of surnames -- especially in 14th century Italy -- but Aligheri is a patronymic, a name that indicates Dante is the son of Alighiero (like Stephenson used to mean that the person was the son of Stephen).

Leonardo's "last name" isn't da Vinci, either. He was born near the town of Vinci.

[eller]

This, and the fact that 'Dante' was a nickname. His actual individual name ('first name' by modern European standards) was 'Durante'. So, this is a specific short form of a name that's already quite rare. (The name may have been a bit more common in medieval Italy than it is today, I don't know, but it's not as if the history books are chock-full of guys called 'Durante', either.) When talking about a writer called 'Dante', I think there's exactly one guy this can refer to.

On the other hand, referring to a writer as 'Victor' doesn't make much sense - that's an incredibly common given name, and I'm relatively sure there's more than one guy called Victor who wrote a successful book... Same goes for Miguel.

[flamingsword]

This.

[dhampyresa]

I'm relatively sure there's more than one guy called Victor who wrote a successful book... Same goes for Miguel.

I think those are LIES and Victor and Miuel are the most unique names in the world, how dare you.

[dhampyresa]

Makes sense, thanks.