The Atlas · Gold

Gold

Preciousness made literal.

165 names · 52 traditions

The same root, across a whole language family

These are attested shared morphemes — not coincidences of spelling. Where we are not confident a root is shared, we say nothing and simply list the names.

chrys-
gold (Greek)
Greek
Chrysa, Chrysanthi, Chrysanthia, Chrysanthoula, Chrysavgi, Chryseis, Chrysi, Chrysothemis
aur-
gold (Latin)
Latin, Italian, Spanish
Aurea, Aurelia
zarrin / zar-
gold (Persian)
Persian
Zarina, Zarnish

Every tradition, side by side

Hebrew 4
Italian 3
Slavic 3
Irish 3
Persian 3
Kazakh 2
Slovenian 2
Mongolian 2
Albanian 2
Icelandic 2
Armenian 2
Urdu 1
Kalmyk 1
Kyrgyz 1
Taíno 1
Breton 1
Hungarian 1
Occitan 1
Romanian 1
Yoruba 1
Kannada 1
Spanish 1
Somali 1
Chechen 1
Yiddish 1
Norwegian 1
Old Norse 1
Hawaiian 1
Lao 1
Vietnamese 1
Arabic 1
Russian 1
Croatian 1
Mapuche 1
Ladino 1
Quechua 1
Swedish 1
Khmer 1
Hmong 1
Oromo 1
Ossetian 1
Pashto 1
Kurdish 1
Bosnian 1
Turkish 1