Ra is the sun: the word and the god are one. Egypt’s gods are the oldest continuously documented pantheon on earth, three thousand years of temples and scribes. This table holds 54 Egyptian god names across six strata: the Ennead of Heliopolis, the Ogdoad of Hermopolis, the sun’s documented forms, the Osiris myth’s cast, the goddesses, and the gods of the working world. The egyptian goddess family of searches rides the goddesses stratum on this page. The animal heads are prose, not etymology: the names state the deity, and the flags on contested roots are the page’s honesty.
The surname lane: Egyptian last names. Two registers: the gods and the families.
What are egyptian god names?
54 real names, six strata, one rule. Each row names who the deity is, the documented sphere, and the root where the root is honest. Where the Egyptologists disagree, the row carries the debate instead of a smooth guess, and the flags are frequent here: Egyptian writing kept the consonants, so the oldest name-roots are read through a glass. The strata are systems, not styles: Heliopolis counted nine, Hermopolis counted eight, and the sun wore one face per hour of the day. The stratum stays on every row.
Grouped by stratum. The stratum stays on every row.
Egyptian god names with builds, meanings and strata
Name
Built from
Meaning
Stratum
Copy
The Ennead of Heliopolis: the nine of the sun-city: Atum’s family tree, the oldest system in the record
Atum
tm (the complete, the finisher)
the self-made one who finished the world, the evening sun of Heliopolis
Ennead
Shu
shw (the empty, the light air)
the dry air between earth and sky, holding the two apart
Ennead
Tefnut
tf (the moisture, the body-water)?
the damp, the spit of Atum in the oldest telling; the root is the plain body word, flagged
Ennead, flagged
Geb
? (the earth’s own word)
the earth itself, the laughing god under Nut’s body; the goose is the myth, not the root
Ennead, contested
Nut
nut (the sky’s own word)
the sky’s body, the star-covered vault arching over the earth
Ennead
Osiris
? (wsir: root unknown)
the dead king, the green judge, the drowned and returned
Ennead, contested
Isis
the throne sign: the name writes with it
the throne’s own name, the queen of royal magic, the hearer of every prayer
Ennead
Set
? (the root and the animal are unknown)
the storm, the desert, the murderer of Osiris; even his beast is unidentified, and the page says so
Ennead, contested
Nephthys
nebet-hut (the lady of the house-enclosure)
the temple-enclosure’s lady, the mourner at every bier
Ennead
The Ogdoad of Hermopolis: the eight of the moon-city: four primordial pairs, abstraction itself deified
Nun
nun (the water’s own word)
the first dark water, the oldest thing there is
Ogdoad
Naunet
nun, the feminine of the water
the water’s depth, the sky’s underside in the primeval flood
Ogdoad
Heh
heh (the endless, the million)
endlessness itself, the million-years sign the kings borrowed for their titles
Ogdoad
Hauhet
heh, the feminine pair
endlessness, the female half of the first abstraction
Ogdoad
Kek
kek (the darkness)
the dark before the first light
Ogdoad
Kauket
kek, the feminine pair
the darkness, the female half of the first dark
Ogdoad
Amun
imn (the hidden)
the hidden one, the breath you cannot see; Thebes made him king of the pantheon
Ogdoad
Amaunet
imn, the feminine pair
the hidden one, the female half of Thebes’ first pair
Ogdoad
The sun forms: the one light under several documented names: morning, midday, disk, fusion
Ra
ra (the sun’s own word)
the sun in his day-boat, the midday king, pharaoh’s father; the "maker" read is debated
Sun form
Khepri
kheper (to come into being: the scarab’s roll)
the becoming one, the morning sun, the dung-beetle’s push across the sky
Sun form
Aten
aten (the disk)
the visible disk, the one god Akhenaten raised above all: the Amarna receipt, 1350s BC
Sun form
Amun-Ra
imn + ra (the hidden sun)
the Theban fusion, the hidden one as the midday king, the empire’s god
Sun form, fusion
Ra-Horakhty
ra + Hor-akhty (Ra, Horus of the two horizons)
the horizon’s sun, the falcon and the disk as one body
Sun form, fusion
Nefertum
nefer (the beautiful, the completed)?
the lotus on the first water, the sunrise’s scent; parse flagged
Sun form, contested
The Osiris myth’s cast: the family beyond the nine: the heir, the embalmer, and the four canopic sons who guard the body
Horus
her? (the distant one, the one on high)?
the falcon heir, the living king, the avenging son
Osiris myth, contested
Anubis
inpu (the root is unknown)
the embalmer, the scale’s attendant, the jackal on the tomb hill
Osiris myth, contested
Imsety
(the human-headed canopic son)
the liver’s guard, the human head, the south of the body
Canopic son
Hapi
(the baboon canopic son: not the Nile flood god)
the lungs’ guard, the baboon; two Hapis share this string, this one is Horus’s son
Canopic son
Duamutef
(the jackal canopic son)
the stomach’s guard, the jackal of the east
Canopic son
Qebehsenuf
(the falcon canopic son)
the intestines’ guard, the falcon of the west
Canopic son
Wepwawet
wep-wawet (the opener of the ways)
the path-opener, the jackal standard that walked before the army
Osiris myth
Harpokrates
Har-pa-khered (Horus the child: the Greek writing)
the child on the lotus, the finger to the lips; a Greek-written Egyptian name
Osiris myth, Greek-era form
Ihy
(the calf, the music child)?
Hathor’s sistrum child, the music at Dendera
Osiris myth, contested
The goddesses: the divine feminine from the lioness to the cobra; this stratum is where the egyptian goddess question lands
Hathor
het-her (the house of Horus)
the house above the sky, the cow of love, the far country’s lady
Goddess
Sekhmet
sekhemet (the powerful)
the powerful one, the plague lioness, the sun’s raging eye
Goddess
Bastet
bastet (the ointment jar: the perfume’s word)?
the cat of Bubastis, the gentle eye once the rage is spent; the root is the jar word, flagged
Goddess, contested
Neith
? (the water or the weave: root unknown)
the huntress weaver of Sais, the crown’s maker, older than the written record
Goddess, contested
Maat
maat (the true, the measured)
the straight and the true, the feather weighed against every heart
Goddess
Mut
mut (the mother)
the mother herself, Thebes’ queen, the vulture’s crown
Goddess
Taweret
ta-weret (the great one)
the great pregnant one, the hippo at the bedside, the household’s guard
Goddess
Heket
heqet (the frog)?
the frog of the birth waters, the midwife’s god
Goddess, flagged
Seshat
seshat (the female scribe)
the writing itself, the library of the gods, the rope-stretcher of foundations
Goddess
Nekhbet
(she of Nekheb: the shining city’s name)
the white vulture, the south’s crown, the mother of mothers
Goddess
Wadjet
wadj (the green one)
the green one, the north’s cobra crown, the eye that burns
Goddess
Meretseger
meret-seger (the lover of silence)
the peak of the west, the cobra of the workmen’s valley, the one who forgave
Goddess
The gods of the working world: the scribes, the potters, the river and the war camps: the gods the working state prayed to
Thoth
djehuty (he of the ibis)
the scribe of the gods, the moon’s book, the words’ own keeper
Working world
Ptah
? (the root is unknown)
the craftsman, the word that built the world, Memphis’ heart
Working world, contested
Khnum
khenem (to join, to build)?
the potter at the wheel, the ram of the first cataract, the shaper of bodies
Working world, flagged
Sobek
? (the root is unknown)
the crocodile of Faiyum, the lake lord, the army’s fear
Working world, contested
Serapis
the made name: Osiris + the Apis bull (Alexandria, c. 290 BC)
the fusion god Ptolemy I commissioned for two peoples at once: a god with a documented inventor
Working world, Ptolemaic
Apis
hap (the bull: the Greek writing of the Egyptian word)
the living bull of Memphis, the oracle in the stable, the calf with the marks
Working world
Montu
(the falcon of war: root unclear)
the war falcon of Armant, the bowman’s banner
Working world, flagged
Min
? (the root is debated)
the harvest’s own, the desert road’s guard, the festival of the stairs
Working world, contested
Khonsu
khens (to travel, to wander)
the moon’s traveler, Thebes’ youth, the gambler who lost five days of light
Working world
Anhur
in-her (the sky-bearer, he who brings back the distant one)?
the hunter of the flying goddess, the spear of Thinis
Working world, flagged
Egyptian gods vs Egyptian last names
This page is the deity register. The family register is a different page, and the two rarely overlap. Egyptian last names as they exist today are mostly the Islamic era’s ledger: hometown suffixes, given names become surnames, Coptic survival strings. The gods’ names are a thousand years older and live in the temples, not the phone book. The surname lane, with its own receipts, is Egyptian last names. If you want a name for a person, go there; if you want the name of a god, you are on the right page.
The animal heads are prose
Anubis does not mean "jackal", and the page will not pretend otherwise. The animal heads are how Egyptian art wrote the name’s owner: a picture-system that put a falcon on Horus and a jackal on Anubis the way English puts a capital letter on a name. The names themselves are their own words, and their roots are usually unknown, which every contested flag in the table records honestly. Set’s animal is not even identified: the scholars have stared at that beast for two centuries and still cannot name it. That is the level of the record, and the page keeps it.
Two cosmogonies, both real
Egypt did not have one creation story; it had rival temples with different answers, and both are documented. Heliopolis, the sun-city, counted nine: Atum self-made, then air and moisture, earth and sky, then the Osiris generation. Hermopolis, the moon-city, counted eight: four primordial pairs, water and darkness, endlessness and its feminine, the raw stuff before the first light. Neither system replaced the other; the priests rowed them side by side for two millennia. The table gives each system its own stratum, which is the honest shape of the record.
The oldest receipts are the Pyramid Texts, carved inside pyramids about 2350 BC: the earliest substantial religious writing anywhere. The Book of the Dead, the Coffin Texts and the temple walls carry the rest of the three-thousand-year ledger.
The sun’s forms
The sun is one god with several documented names, and each row is a real form, not a synonym. Khepri is the morning, the becoming beetle. Ra is the midday king. Amun-Ra is the Theban fusion, the hidden one read as the midday light, the New Kingdom’s imperial god. Ra-Horakhty is the horizon’s sun, falcon and disk as one. And Aten is the visible disk itself, the god Akhenaten raised above all the others in the 1350s BC: a documented religious revolution, walked back by his successors, with a ruined capital to show for it. The Amarna episode is the receipt that these forms were felt as real and distinct.
The goddesses’ stratum
The divine feminine of Egypt is the register’s heart, and the egyptian goddess family of searches is answered here. Isis and Nephthys row in the Ennead, their documented seats; the rest fill the goddesses stratum above. Hathor, the house of Horus, the cow of love and the miners’ lady. Sekhmet the plague lioness and Bastet the household cat, the sun’s eye in her two tempers. Neith the weaver, older than writing. Maat, the feather the dead heart is weighed against. Mut the mother, Taweret the bedside hippo, Seshat the writing itself, and the two crowns of the two lands: Nekhbet the vulture of the south, Wadjet the cobra of the north.
Three string-shares are noted honestly. Isis and Aten row as given names on the African names page, a living register this page does not double: the deity rows here, the bearer rows there. Amun rows here in the Egyptological spelling: the Goetia grimoires later read him as a demon under the spelling Amon, and that string belongs to the demon names page. And the deified architect Imhotep, a real god of healing in late Egypt, is not rowed here at all: the halloween names page owns his string.
What do egyptian god names mean?
Three kinds of receipt run through the table. The transparent ones are abstractions and offices: Maat is the word for the true, Thoth is "he of the ibis". The title-names write their own pictures: Isis writes with the throne sign. The great old theonyms, the Osiris and Set and Anubis class, have roots nobody can read anymore, and the rows say so plainly. Eight receipts, one or two per stratum:
Egyptian god name meaning spotlight
Name
Built from
Meaning
Ra
ra (the sun’s own word)
the midday king, pharaoh’s father
Isis
the throne sign
the throne’s own name, the hearer of prayers
Osiris
? (wsir: root unknown)
the dead king, the green judge
Anubis
inpu (root unknown)
the embalmer, the scale’s attendant
Maat
maat (the true, the measured)
the feather against every heart
Amun
imn (the hidden)
the breath you cannot see
Aten
aten (the disk)
Akhenaten’s one light, 1350s BC
Serapis
the made name (c. 290 BC)
the god with a documented inventor
Every one of the 54 rows above carries the same receipt in its own columns.
Egyptian god names questions, answered
Are these the gods’ real names?
Yes, with one honest caveat about vowels. Egyptian writing recorded the consonants, so every vowel you see is a later convention: Amun, Amen and Amon are one word in three scholarly spellings, and this page uses the standard Egyptological forms. The names themselves come from the oldest religious corpus on earth, the Pyramid Texts (about 2350 BC), the Coffin Texts, the Book of the Dead, the temple inscriptions at Edfu and Dendera, and the Greek-era writers Herodotus and Plutarch for the casts they recorded. No deity here is invented.
Can I use an Egyptian god name for my pet or a character?
Yes. Some of these are living given names right now. Isis rows as a given name on the African names page, a real register with real bearers, and Osiris and Anubis are popular pet strings in the English register. The ancients put these names on people too: pharaohs were named for Amenemhat and Thutmose, "Amun is in front" and "Thoth is born", which is the oldest receipt for the practice there is. For characters, the fantasy name generator builds names the same way the Egyptians did, from parts that state their meaning.
Is there a separate Egyptian goddess names page?
No: one register, both strata, by design. The goddesses ride this page. Two of them belong to the Ennead (Isis and Nephthys row there, in their documented seats), and the rest fill the goddesses stratum above: the lioness and the cat, the vulture and the cobra, the hippo at the bedside, the feather at the scale. The egyptian goddess family of searches is answered right here. The siblings do the same: Greek god names, Roman god names and Norse god names.
Where this data comes from.Names and spheres follow the primary record (the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts, the Book of the Dead, the temple inscriptions at Edfu and Dendera, the Greek-era accounts of Herodotus and Plutarch) and the standard Egyptological references. Contested roots (Osiris, Set, Anubis, Horus, Neith, Ptah, Sobek, Min) are flagged in-row; the vowels in every transliteration are scholarly convention, since Egyptian writing recorded the consonants. The animal heads are iconography, not etymology, and are treated as prose throughout. Where every name's receipt comes from →