The Five Forms of the King’s Name An Egyptian king took five names when he ascended the throne. These names, called the titulary, reflected the king’s different symbolic roles in society.         First Form: The Horus Name The Horus name was written in a frame called a serekh, which showed the falcon god Horus, son of the god Osiris, standing on a palace. By associating himself with Horus while he was in the palace, the king showed that he was the true heir of Osiris.         Second Form: The Two Ladies Name The king claimed the protection of Nekhbet of Upper Egypt and Wadjet of Lower Egypt with this name, which was preceded by the hieroglyphs for these two goddesses.         Third Form: The Golden Horus Name This name followed the hieroglyphic sign of the falcon god Horus standing on the sign for gold. It may have represented Horus as the victor over his enemy Seth, or it may have referred to every king’s claim that the god Amun had made him into a golden falcon.           Fourth Form: Praenomen This name was written in an oval form known as a cartouche. It followed either words associated with the White Crown of Upper Egypt and the Red Crown of Lower Egypt or the words “The Good God, Lord of the Two Lands.”         Fifth Form: Nomen The nomen, also written in a cartouche, was most probably the king’s birth name and is the name most commonly used by modern Egyptologists to refer to a king. It followed the phrase “Son of Re,” associating the king with the sun god.         Back to Introduction The Egyptian Hieroglyphic Writing System African Roots of the Egyptian Language Five Historical Stages of the Egyptian Language How Champollion Deciphered Hieroglyphs