Vakhtang I of Iberia - Name

Name

According to the Life of Vakhtang Gorgasali, the king was given at his birth an Iranian name Varazkhosrovtang, rendered in Georgian as Vakhtang. The name may indeed be derived from Iranian *warx-tang (vahrka-tanū) — "wolf-bodied", a possible reflection of the wolf cult in ancient Georgia. Beginning in the late 13th century, numerous Georgian princes and kings took the name Vakhtang. Toumanoff observes that the name Vakhtang has no Classical equivalent and infers that the king’s sobriquet Gorgasal — given to Vakhtang because of the shape of the helmet he wore — was rendered by the 6th-century Roman historian Procopius as Gurgenes (Greek: Γουργένης). Toumanoff's identification of Vakhtang with Gurgenes has not been universally accepted.