Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections N AMING P RACTICES AND I DENTITY IN THE E ARLY L ATE B RONZE A GE L EVANT : A L INGUISTIC AND G EOGRAPHICAL A NALYSIS OF L OCAL R ULERS ’ N AMES ATTESTED IN THE A MARNA L ETTERS Marwan Kilani Freie Universita t Berlin; Swiss National Science Foundation INTRODUCTION Although West Semitic and non-West Semitic names of Levantine local rulers atested in the Amarna leters 1 have been studied in detail multiple times, 2 and although various scholars have noticed general trends characterizing them, no systematic analysis of their geographical distribution has ever been performed. This observation leads to an obvious research question: are names of rulers distributed according to coherent geo-linguistic paterns? This paper aims at providing an answer by combining a geographical analysis of their distribution under- taken with a geographic information system (QGIS) with a socio-linguistic interpretation of the emerging paterns based on a theoretical model developed from ancient data and a modern ethnographic parallel. 1: INTERPRETING THE DATA: A FEW NOTES ABOUT TERMINOLOGY The first major problem when dealing with issues of identity and socio-cultural (self-)perception is to identify an appropriate terminological frame. In our case, what kinds of identities are reflected in the different names of Levantine rulers atested in the Amarna leters? And, more in general, what kind of identities and identity-based interactions can we assume were present in the ancient Near East at the time? I explore in detail these questions in another paper that is in preparation. I am not going to discuss this topic here, as it would be beyond the scope and aims of this paper. Here it suffices to say that in that forthcoming paper I question the validity of the concept of “ethnicity” to assess ancient Near Eastern Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections | EgyptianExpedition.org |vol. 27 (September 2020) | 70–93 ABSTRACT Multiple names of local rulers are atested in the Amarna leters, most of which can be analyzed as being linguistically West Semitic, Hurrian, or Indo-Aryan. These names have been variously discussed, but no systematic analysis of their geographical distribution has ever been performed. This paper aims to fill this gap. The first section provides the actual analysis of the data. The names are first analyzed in the light of their geographical distribution (using geographic information system [GIS] and clustering algorithms). Then I present a theoretical model of naming practices based on cross-cultural evidence. Finally, this model is applied to the names of the local rulers in order to assess their socio-historical significance.