Cheers DonQ. I like to play with possibilities too, but maybe I'm less patient than you are.
Good point about names being magical. Like a deferred wish for the person named. I think we all like to find out if our own names mean something nice, even if whoever named us didn't know the meaning.
I understand the point about Roman names now. Women were given two names based on their father's family, whilst the men often had three or even four, including a seperate personal name. So you got a point about women being less of an individual - with fewer names going around more women would have shared the same name as the men did. But this is only in official documents, and many men shared the same name too. But everyone would have had their own nicknames within family and friends to distinguish them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_naming_conventions_for_females
I don't know how peculiar this practise was to Rome and its empire, though. Nor whether it has anything to do with Hebrew naming traditions. A look at the Herodian and Hasmonean family trees show a lack of name variations for men and women.
I hope the new book is entertaining and informative, and gives you further inspiration to post stuff for us to read on the thread.
Edited by Sidney - 17-Mar-2012 at 21:07