[tourmalinetaco]

Depending on your viewpoint and what “counts”, king is probably the oldest in a loose non-specific way. Though this did lead me down a rabbit hope where I found an interesting bit of trivia. The Akkadian word for king, “šar”, is suspiciously close to the Slavic word for monarch, “tsar”. I can’t find any concrete evidence of a connection, but hey, it’s fun to ponder whether it’s coincidental or not.

[arrosenberg]

There is no connection. Tsar and Kaiser are both derived from the name Caesar, which became a royal title (along with Augustus) in the 300s under Diocletian.

[jihadjihad]

Doesn't seem related--looks like šar is Semitic in origin [0] while tsar comes to the language by way of Caesar [1].

0: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C5%A1arrum#Akkadian

1: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tsar#Etymology

[BJones12]

Etymonline [0] says 'tsar' comes from Caesar, which comes from the name Caius Julius Caesar. “šar” would therefore be unrelated.

[0] https://www.etymonline.com/word/Caesar

[arethuza]

Isn't "tsar" derived from "Caesar" which was originally just someone's name?

[mlfreeman]

I see people pointing out the "Caesar -> tsar" link (and I've heard that myself too), but I have to wonder if Akkadian "sar" somehow became "Caesar".

[saalweachter]

I believe "Caesar" derives from the word "caesaries", which means "hair/curls/beard-hairs".

Romans at the time were using three names, the given name (Gaius), the family/clan name (Julius) and the cognomen (Caesar), which was originally a nickname that became hereditary to identify a particular branch of a family.

So, the emperor of Russia was called the tsar because Gaius Julius or one of his ancestors was nicknamed "Curly" or maybe "Beardy".

[bee_rider]

All the statues I’ve seen of him make his hair look not so curly, and they don’t show him having a beard. This open up the possibility that many royal titles are ultimately named after some Italian guy’s magnificent chest hair (which would be hard to capture in a statue).

[saalweachter]

I'm with you all the way, but I'm pretty sure cognomen had transitioned from nicknames to hereditary by Gaius Julius Caesar's time. Also, clean-shaven was a relatively new fashion in Rome -- Cicero, one of Caesar's political enemies and of the previous generation, had a speech complaining about how women these days liked pretty clean-shaven younger men, and not the robust full-bearded old patricians, like they should.

[bee_rider]

Hopefully nobody wrote down the true source of his nickname so I can plausibly continue believing…

[NeoTar]

Another fun idea which has been proposed is that it’s an ironic nickname - so rather than ‘Baldy’ (which is you see busts of Caesar is certainly plausible) people called him or his ancestors ‘hairy’.

[Suppafly]

Another less popular theory is that it's from caesus which means to cut, which would be interesting because the cesarean section, also known as a C-section, was named after Caesar so it'd be a bit of circular definition.

>because Gaius Julius or one of his ancestors

Sextus Julius Caesar is the first Julii Caesares according to wikipedia. I just love that the term for all of them is Julii Caesares.

[bee_rider]

I thought tsar was derived from Caesar? (Or is that just a folk etymology?)