Mitra Onomastics; The Indo-Iranian Deity

This article is based on Mithra/Mitra onomastics. The purpose is a qualitative diachronic survey about changes in Mitra and Mehr words in Phonological, etymological, and semantic fields. The domain of research was Old Iranian languages along with Sanskrit; then Middle Iranian languages to New Persian. The analysis showed that Mitra is considered a male deity by grammatical and biological gender in Ṛigveda, Avesta, and other ancient texts. Accordingly, the deixis for Iranian Mitra is “god” and not “goddess’’. Due to phonetic evolution, Mitra became Mehr in the Middle Iranian languages period. Due to the broadening of the meaning, this word accepted a new meaning, “sun”, plus previous meanings (friendship, promise, and treaty). Mehr shows a vast variety in the structure of Middle and New Persian compound personal names. This study showed that methods of compound personal name formation in Hindi and New Persian are similar. Religion, as a non-linguistic element was observed in Mitra onomastics: In contemporary Iran and the Muslim community (Urdu speakers) of India, Mitra is a female name; but in the Hindu community it is unisex.