Ancient Egyptian royal titulary

The royal titulary or royal protocol of an Egyptian pharaoh is the standard naming convention taken by the kings of Ancient Egypt. It symbolises worldly power and holy might and also acts as a sort of mission statement for the reign of a monarch (sometimes it even changed during the reign).

The full titulary, consisting of five names, did not come into standard usage until the Middle Kingdom but remained in use as late as the Roman Empire.

The Horus name is the oldest form of the pharaoh's name, originating in the Predynastic Period. Many of the oldest-known Egyptian pharaohs were known only by this title.

The Horus name was usually written in a serekh, a representation of a palace façade. The name of the pharaoh was written in hieroglyphs inside this representation of a palace. Typically an image of the falcon God Horus was perched on top of or beside it.

At least one Egyptian ruler, the 2nd dynasty Seth-Peribsen, used an image of the god Seth instead of Horus, perhaps signifying an internal religious division within the country. He was succeeded by Khasekhemwy, who placed the symbols of both Seth and Horus above his name. Thereafter, the image of Horus always appeared alongside the name of the pharaoh.

By the time of the New Kingdom the Horus name was often written without the enclosing serekh.

The Nebty name (lit. "two ladies") was associated with the so-called "heraldic" goddesses of Upper and Lower Egypt:

The name is first definitively used by the First Dynasty pharaoh Semerkhet, though it only became a fully independent title by the Twelfth Dynasty.

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