Every historical novelist faces a decision that most readers never notice but that shapes every page: what do you call things? The question sounds trivial until you realize that almost none of the names we use for ancient Egyptian places, people, and institutions are the names the Egyptians themselves used. What we call "Thebes" the Egyptians called Waset. What we call "Memphis" they called by several names over time, most commonly Men-nefer (from the New Kingdom onward); the earlier designation, Ineb-hedj, "the White Walls," referred originally to the fortified enclosure of the first settlement. What we call "Heliopolis" they called Iunu. Even "Egypt" is Greek; the Egyptians called their country Kemet, "the Black Land," after the dark fertile soil deposited by the Nile's annual flood.
This article explores where these names come from, why Egyptology has settled on the conventions it uses, and how The Amarna Mysteries navigates the tension between historical authenticity and reader accessibility.
The Greek Filter
The dominant naming convention in Egyptology traces back to the Greeks. When Herodotus traveled through Egypt in the 5th century BCE, he recorded place names in forms that made sense to Greek-speaking audiences. Some were transliterations of Egyptian words filtered through Greek phonology. Others were translations of meaning. A few were entirely new coinages based on Greek impressions of what they saw.
These Greek names were then transmitted through the classical literary tradition, reinforced by the Ptolemaic period (when Greeks ruled Egypt for nearly three centuries), and embedded into European scholarship during the Renaissance rediscovery of antiquity. By the time Champollion deciphered hieroglyphs in 1822 and Egyptology became a formal discipline, the Greek names were so thoroughly established that displacing them would have created more confusion than clarity.
The result is a naming landscape that modern Egyptology has largely inherited and that most popular and academic sources continue to use.
Thebes derives from the Greek Θῆβαι (Thēbai). The Egyptians called the city Waset (wꜣs.t). The name "Thebes" may have been a Greek adaptation of the Egyptian word for the nearby temple precinct, or it may have been an association with the Greek city of Thebes in Boeotia. The connection remains debated. What is not debated is that no Egyptian in the 18th Dynasty would have recognized the word "Thebes."
Memphis comes from the Greek Μέμφις (Memphis), itself derived from the Egyptian Men-nefer (mn-nfr), which was originally the name of the pyramid complex of Pepi I (6th Dynasty) but which by the New Kingdom had become attached to the city itself. The earlier name, Ineb-hedj ("the White Walls"), referred to the fortified enclosure of the original settlement. By Tutankhamun's time, Egyptians used several names for the city depending on context, but Men-nefer was common. The Greek adaptation is recognizable enough that it serves as a reasonable bridge.
Heliopolis is a direct Greek translation: "City of the Sun" (Ἡλιούπολις), rendering the Egyptian Iunu (iwnw), which was the cult center of the sun god Ra. The Greek name communicates the city's function to a modern reader in a way that "Iunu" does not.
Avaris comes from the Greek Αὔαρις (Auaris), via Manetho's 3rd-century BCE history. The Egyptian name was Hut-waret (ḥw.t-wꜥr.t), meaning roughly "Estate of the Desert Tract," the element wꜥr.t denoting a desert nome or administrative district with desert character. The site was the Hyksos capital during the Second Intermediate Period and continued to be occupied, though at reduced scale, into the 18th Dynasty. No modern reader would recognize "Hut-waret." Every Egyptology textbook uses "Avaris."
The Exception: Akhetaten
One name in The Amarna Mysteries breaks the Greek convention deliberately. The city that Akhenaten built as his new capital is called Akhetaten (ꜣḫ.t-itn, "Horizon of the Aten") throughout the novel's ancient narrative, not by its modern archaeological name, Tell el-Amarna, or the shortened form "Amarna."
The reason is specific to the story. Akhetaten was a purpose-built city with a name that was itself a theological statement: the horizon where the Aten rises. That name was part of Akhenaten's revolution, chosen to declare that his new capital existed at the point where the divine light entered the world. When the characters in the novel speak about this city, they use the name its founder gave it, because that name carries everything the city represented and everything that was lost when it was abandoned.
The modern name "Amarna" derives from the Beni Amran, a local Arab tribe whose settlement near the ancient ruins gave the site its current designation. It is a modern Arabic place name with no connection to ancient Egypt. Using it in dialogue set in 1332 BCE would be an anachronism of a particularly disorienting kind: naming a city after people who would not exist for another two thousand years.
The series title, however, uses the modern term: The Amarna Mysteries, not The Akhetaten Mysteries. This is a deliberate choice for recognizability. "Amarna" is how the period is known in popular culture, in bookstores, and in search engines. The title speaks to the modern reader; the narrative speaks to the ancient world. Both are doing their job.
The Pharaoh's Many Names
Egyptian royal naming presents its own complexities. A pharaoh did not have one name. He had five, collectively known as the royal titulary, each serving a different theological and political function.
The two most commonly encountered in modern Egyptology are the prenomen (throne name, taken at coronation) and the nomen (birth name). Modern convention typically uses whichever name is most recognizable. We say "Tutankhamun" (his nomen, meaning "Living Image of Amun") rather than "Nebkheperure" (his prenomen, meaning "Lord of the Forms of Ra"). We say "Akhenaten" (his changed nomen, meaning "Effective for the Aten") rather than "Neferkheperure" (his prenomen). In both cases, the nomen is more distinctive and more widely known.
But for the pharaoh at the center of The Amarna Mysteries' backstory, the woman who ruled briefly after Akhenaten's death, the naming question is more fraught. Her prenomen was Ankhkheperure. Her epithet was Neferneferuaten ("Beautiful are the Beauties of the Aten"). Scholars who identify this ruler as Nefertiti use her familiar name. Those who identify her as someone else, Meritaten, or the Younger Lady, face the problem that her birth name is precisely what is in dispute.
The Amarna Mysteries takes the position that this pharaoh was the Younger Lady, not Nefertiti, and refers to her by her full throne name, Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten, in formal contexts. This is less reader-friendly than a single familiar name, but it is more honest: it uses the name the historical record actually preserves rather than substituting a name that assumes an identification the series does not accept.
Titles and Functional Descriptions
Names are not the only translation problem. Titles present their own challenges, particularly when an Egyptian title communicates something very different to a modern reader than its literal translation suggests.
The most significant example in The Amarna Mysteries is Ay's title it-netjer, literally "God's Father." This is an attested Egyptian title with a complex history. In the Old and Middle Kingdoms, it could designate the non-royal father of a king. In the 18th Dynasty, its meaning is debated: it may indicate Ay's relationship to the royal family (possibly as Nefertiti's father or father-in-law), or it may be a more general honorific indicating senior advisory status.
The series uses "Regent" as Ay's functional title in narrative. This is not a translation of it-netjer; it is a description of what Ay actually did. During Tutankhamun's minority, Ay governed Egypt on behalf of a child king. The historical viziers during this period were Usermontu and Penthu, not Ay; his authority derived from proximity and political dominance rather than formal office. "Regent" communicates this immediately to a modern reader. "God's Father" communicates almost nothing without a paragraph of explanation.
The series preserves "God's Father" in two specific contexts: formal court settings where the title would have been used as protocol, and as Tutankhamun's personal term of endearment for Ay, carrying a warmth and trust that makes Ay's betrayal more painful.
The Translation Spectrum
Every historical novelist works somewhere on a spectrum between two impossible extremes. At one end: use every Egyptian term, force the reader to learn a new vocabulary, achieve perfect linguistic authenticity at the cost of readability. At the other: translate everything into modern English equivalents, achieve perfect clarity at the cost of period texture.
Neither extreme produces good fiction. The first creates an encyclopedia. The second creates a costume drama where people in ancient clothing speak like modern executives.
The Amarna Mysteries aims for a middle position governed by a simple principle: use the name that communicates most clearly without breaking the historical frame. Greek names for cities, because that is what Egyptology uses and what readers will find in any reference book. Egyptian names where the Egyptian word carries meaning that matters to the story (Akhetaten, Ma'at, the Aten). Functional English where a literal translation would obscure rather than illuminate (Regent, healer's chest, the Great Place).
This is not a system that can be applied mechanically. Every choice involves judgment. But it is a system that can be applied consistently, and consistency is what allows a reader to settle into a historical world without constantly stumbling over naming decisions that pull them out of the story.
Why This Matters for Historical Fiction
Naming conventions are not a minor technical decision. They are the first thing a reader encounters and the last thing they forget. They signal whether the author has thought carefully about the world being presented. They determine whether the ancient setting feels inhabited or merely decorated.
When a character in 1332 BCE says "Memphis" rather than "Men-nefer," the reader gains instant recognition at the cost of a small historical inaccuracy that every Egyptologist in the world also commits in their own published work. When the same character says "Akhetaten" rather than "Amarna," the reader gains a word that sounds and feels like ancient Egypt, that carries theological meaning in its syllables, and that reminds them they are in a world where names were not arbitrary labels but declarations of intent.
The goal is not perfection. The goal is a naming landscape where every choice serves the reader's immersion rather than the author's desire to demonstrate research. If a name helps the reader see ancient Egypt more clearly, it earns its place. If it forces the reader to pause and decode, it should be replaced with something that does the job better.
The Egyptians understood this instinctively. They gave their cities names that told you what mattered about them: the Horizon of the Aten, the White Walls, the City of the Sun. Three thousand years later, we are still trying to do the same thing, just in a different language.
Dodson, A., Nefertiti, Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt: Lives and Afterlives (2020)
Dodson, A., Amarna Sunset: Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, Ay, Horemheb, and the Egyptian Counter-Reformation (2009)
Kemp, B., The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Amarna and Its People (2012)
A.J. Tilke is the author of The Amarna Mysteries, a four-book historical fiction series set in ancient Egypt's 18th Dynasty. The Poisoner's Throne (Book 1) publishes June 2026, followed by The Restoration Trilogy — The Hittite Reckoning, The Restoration Murders, and The Dakhamunzu Affair — later in 2026. A short-story anthology, The Twelve Hours of Night, is planned for 2027.
