How popular was the name Imhotep?
score:10
Short Answer
The name Imhotep was used long after the time the priest, craftsman and chancellor to the pharaoh Djoser of the 3rd Dynasty lived; some 2,000 years after Imhotep's death, he was deified as a god of medicine and healing. Although we have no evidence from the time he lived that he was a physician, his deification was at least one reason that the name 'Imhotep' was given to both men and women in later times. As so much evidence from ancient Egypt has been destroyed, though, it's hard to say how common it was.
Details
Given that The British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, Margaret Bunson's Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt and The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt - not to mention googling (for example, here and here) - all fail to mention any other individuals by the name of Imhotep, we can reasonably assume that there are no other known, notable ancient Egyptians with that name.
However,
In the Late Period (including the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods) the names of the “greater” gods were rarely used as personal names....There were apparently no restrictions for the names of “lesser” divinities such as Bes (Bs, I 98,14; DN 146), Smithis (5smtt I 322,17-18 [read cT.t, cTtj.t]), 5mtj (DN 968), Tutu/Tithoes (6wtw I 379,15-16; DN 1273-1275), and of course the divinized individuals Imhotep and Amenhotep son Hapu, all of which were widely appropriated as male proper names.
(my emphasis)
Source: Günter Vittmann, Personal Names: Structures and Patterns (UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology)
Vittmann also cites an example:
On her funerary stela, Taimhotep, a noble lady of Ptolemaic Memphis, tells the reader that her son Imhotep was born on the festival of his divinized name-sake, who had granted her (the mother), by oracle, the highly desired birth of a son, who was also called Petubastis.
(my emphasis)
The above cited article, Ancient Language and Names, also goes into some detail on names in ancient Egypt, going back to the Old Kingdom. Another example can (or at least could) be found on a statuette at the British Museum:
one figure is dedicated to Imhotep by Ptah-mes, and another by a devotee who is also called Imhotep.
Source: Jamieson B. Hurry, 'Imhotep: The Vizier and Physician of of King Zoser and afterwards the Egyptian God of Medicine' (OUP, 1926)
Imhotep as a deity, Ptolemaic period. Source: Musée du Louvre.
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