How do the kings and important figures in history get the titles?
score:7
Historians and the general public choose it. The term for these names are epithets. Specifically, the ones you mentioned are cognomens, since they go behind (or before) the given name. In contrast, a sobriquet replaces the proper name altoghther.
Like us normal people, important figures do not generally get to choose their own nicknames. Instead, it is usually invented by someone else and then bestowed on them. Some of these caught on, so to speak, and continues to be known today; though many have since vanished from public consciousness.
One way this happens is that a chronicler or historian created a nickname in their writings. For example, Infante Henrique of Portugal was styled"the navigator" in the writings of 19th century German historians, Heinrich Schaefer and Gustav de Veer. This nickname was then popularised by the British writers Henry Major and Raymond Beazley, becoming standard outside of Portugal.
Sometimes the nickname was bestowed out of political motivations. For example, Julian the Apostate received his epithet from the early Christian Church for abandoning Christianity. William the Wicked, a relatively benevolent king, seemed to have been a victim of his biased chronicler's hatred.
Alexander the Great may have gotten his epithet from the Romans, who slowly came to appreciate his achievements.
It took a long time before Alexander's greatness really came home to the Romans, although they were the people who, as far as we can tell, gave him the epithet 'the Great', and it took even longer before he made an impact on individual Romans. The earliest record we have of Alexander is in Plautus' Mostellaria, 775-7, where the slave Tranio brackets him with Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse: Alexandrum magnum atque Agathoclem aiunt maxumas
- Den Hengst, Danièel. Emperors and Historiography: Collected Essays on the Literature of the Roman Empire by Danièel Den Hengst. Vol. 319. Brill, 2010.
So in conclusion, the general public chooses these nicknames. But this does not have to be unanimous at all. In fact, some times people have multiple nicknames. For example, Louis XI of France has been called both "the Prudent" as well as "the Cunning", after his tight spending and intrigues, respectively.
More post
- 📝 Why did the Japanese expect the United States navy would attack the Home Islands?
- 📝 How did the USSR manage to innovate in an environment characterized by government censorship and high bureaucracy?
- 📝 Is it true that Operation Popeye had a trial run in India - code name project Gromet?
- 📝 Physical meaning of the phrase "Beijing-Tianjing corridor" in the context of Sino-Japanese war?
- 📝 Drug abuse in the Holy Land?
- 📝 What is the purpose of the iron structures seen on the sides of many WW2 flak towers?
- 📝 During World War I, why were church bells stopped until the war was over?
- 📝 Who was Nimet Eloui Bey's father?
- 📝 When and how did the presidents of states became governors in the U.S.A?
- 📝 Did any "tanks in front" tactic exist during WW2?
- 📝 Is strategic bombing as ineffective as this math suggests?
- 📝 What is the date of this photograph of a woman riding a horse sidesaddle?
- 📝 What flag is similar to the American flag, but has only 9 stars and 13 vertical stripes?
- 📝 Does Genghish Khan Worship Tengri?
- 📝 What family or other connection bound Chiang Kaishek and Cai Yuanpei, two ideological opposites?
- 📝 Is it true that slavery was banned from discussion on the Senate and/or House floor before the American Civil War?
- 📝 What were China's thoughts on the possibility of a nuclear exchange, during the Cold War?
- 📝 What's the Ancient Egyptian phrase/word for “Royal Road of Life”? And how would it have been spelt?
- 📝 Do Egyptian mummies contain DNA? If so, was it viable enough to analyzed it?
- 📝 Was there ever a democracy where the three branches went to war?
- 📝 Where can I find biographical details on Bernardino (Dino) Barozzi?
- 📝 Why does the Puerto Rican flag look so much like the one of the U.S.A.?
- 📝 Why was Europe so technologically and culturally advanced?
- 📝 At the start of Barbarossa, what was the state of Germany's oil supply?
- 📝 How was financial profit viewed in Medieval Europe?
- 📝 How did the US vet Soviet refugees for possible spies/infiltrators?
- 📝 Why were women excluded from the succession line in the Meiji constitution?
- 📝 Have interior lines ever mattered?
- 📝 What was World War 1 called before World War 2?
- 📝 How many days of supply did units in WW2 carry?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How do the kings and important figures in history get the titles?
- 📝 Is black American history only about segregation, slavery, and the 3 people you get taught about in school?
- 📝 How important were Einstein and Szilard and other scientists to the creation and ultimate success of the Manhattan Project?
- 📝 How accurate and balanced is Paul Johnson's 'A History of the Jews'?
- 📝 How important were reprints of scientific articles in scientific practice and communications before the the copier, the computer and the internet?
- 📝 How and when did Jews get to the shores of the Baltic?
- 📝 How did messages get back and forth between ship and shore during the Battle of Cherbourg?
- 📝 How could a prisoner get lessons to read, write and do mathematics in jail, while innocent people didn't get the basic knowledge in 18th-19th century?
- 📝 How do historians and linguists know how to pronounce the names from non-phonetic scripts?
- 📝 How and when did the word "nuclear" replace the word "atomic"?
- 📝 How did the USSR manage to innovate in an environment characterized by government censorship and high bureaucracy?
- 📝 When and how did the USA and the UK become allies?
- 📝 How did Italy and Germany get rubber in WWII?
- 📝 How and when was the modern company ownership structure invented?
- 📝 How did Moscow become the capital/most important city in Russia?
- 📝 How were the cities of Milan and Bruges spared by the Black Death?
- 📝 How did the ruling class in the Muslim world react to the discovery and colonization of the Americas?
- 📝 How to explain the apparent discrepancy in the use of papyrus vs. clay tablets between Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia?
- 📝 How true is the statement "Soviet troops got into Berlin riding American trucks, walking in American boots and using American trains"?
- 📝 How many lives were estimated to have been saved by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs?
- 📝 How and why was the boundary between West and East Berlin decided to be where it was?
- 📝 When and how did the Han ethnic group become by far the biggest ethnic group in China?
- 📝 How was the modern geographic boundary between Europe and Asia decided?
- 📝 How long did it take for a diplomat to travel between Berlin and Vienna in the 1770's?
- 📝 How to identify this coin with a bust on one side and the letters S and C on the other side?
- 📝 How expensive were castles? And how were the costs distributed?
- 📝 How much did J. Robert Oppenheimer get paid while overseeing the Manhattan Project?
- 📝 How did Alexander III of Macedon get the title "the Great"?
- 📝 How long did it take to get news of the sighting of the Spanish Armada from Land’s End to London?
- 📝 How do Friedman and Bernanke's explanations about the causes of the Great Depression compare?