Patronymics,
of course, are very important. They are unfortunately rather infrequent in the
Mari texts, coming from the judicial texts of which only one volume has been
published. If one of the names appears to be Amorite, the name of the father or
son can tentatively be added to the collection. Nevertheless, since there are
clear cases of interchange of Amorite and Hurrian (e.g. Ku-ul-bi-a-tal [mā]r
ḫa-az-ri-a-mi-im, ARM I.78.5-6;
Ya-an-ti-in-AN mār Ti-eš-ul-me, ARM V.35.27-8; et al.) or
Akkadian names (e.g., ṣú-ri-dIM
. . . mār dUD-na-ṣir, ARM VIII.52.21-2; Ya-šu-ub-a-šar mār
Be-la-ti, ARM VIII.63.11; et al.), caution is necessary. Patronymics
can only be listed as Amorite if there are no arguments against such
consideration. (Herbert Bardwell Huffmon, Amorite Personal Names in the Mari
Texts: A Structural and Lexical Study [Baltimore, Md.: The John Hopkins
Press, 1965], 15-16)
