希臘語中的波斯人族稱、米底人族稱和阿黑門尼德王族名祖阿凱美奈斯的名字均由通俗詞源學手段借入。名祖由族稱虛構而來。古風時代初期譜系神話中的大洋河神之女、太陽神之妻柏爾塞/柏爾塞伊絲很可能已是波斯名祖,其孫女美狄婭及其子美得奧斯則是米底名祖。在波斯帝國向愛琴海世界擴張的年代,出現了宙斯和達娜艾之子柏爾修斯的兒子柏爾塞斯作為波斯人名祖的神話。波斯人不僅知曉該神話,還在與希臘城邦的外交活動中加以利用,并與希臘人展開關于其祖先血統的爭辯。作為經典的波斯名祖譜系,該神話還引發了阿凱美奈斯為柏爾修斯之子的新譜系的編造。柏爾塞斯作為美多斯或美狄婭之子的譜系版本可能生成于波斯勢力侵入愛琴海地區初期。在雅典帝國與波斯對峙的歷史環境中,誕生了美狄婭和埃勾斯生子美多斯的神話,它又催生了阿凱美奈斯為埃勾斯之子的譜系版本。波斯名祖譜系神話,對以想象的血緣作為界定族群決定性標準的理論構成了挑戰。

In Greek,the invented names denoting the Persians and Medes and the name of the royal house of Achaemenids,from the eponymous Achaemenes,all came about via folk etymology.In a lineage myth of the early archaic period,the name of Perse/Perseis,daughter of Oceanus and wife of the sun-god Helios, may already have been an eponym for Persian, while her granddaughter Medeia and Medeia’s son Medeios furnished an eponym for the Medes.As the Persian empire expanded into the Aegean world,a myth emerged under which Perses,son of that Perseus who was born to Zeus and Dana3,gave his name to the eponymous Persians.The Persians were not only aware of this myth but made use of it in their relations with the Greek city-states,arguing with the Greeks about their ancestral line.As a classic eponymous ancestry,this generated the myth that Achaemenes was the son of Perseus.The version which had it that Perses was the son of Medea may have been created in the early phase of the Persian invasion of the Aegean region.The confrontation between the Athenian Empire and Persia then gave rise to the myth that Medea and Aegeus had had a son,Medeius,circumstances that also produced the version of the lineage which made Achaemenes the son of Aegeus.The Persians’ eponymous genealogy is a myth that challenges the theory that imagined kinship ties are the decisive criterion for defining an ethnic group.