This, in Spita-ces, is followed by a guttural ending, which is either a diminutive corresponding to the modern Persian -efc, or perhaps a suffixed article.

In Spit-amas, the suffix -mas is the common form of the superlative, and may be compared with the Latin -mus in optimus, intimus, supremus, and the like.
Ehambacas contains the root rafno, "joy, pleasure," which we find in Pati-ramphies, followed by the guttural suffix.
There remains, finally, a class of Median names, containing roots not found in any known names of Persians, but easily explicable from Zend, Sanscrit, or other cognate tongues, and therefore not antagonistic to the view that Median and Persian were two closely connected dialects.
Such, for instance, are the royal names mentioned by Herodotus, Deioces, Phraortes, Astyages, and Cyaxares; and such also are the following, which come to us from various sources; Amytis, Astibaras, Armamithres or Harmamithres, Mandauces, Parsondas, Eama-tes, Susiscanes, Tithaous, and Zanasanes.
In Deioces, or (as the Latins write it) Dejoces, there can be little doubt that we have the name given as Djohak or Zohak in the Shahnameh and other modern Persian writings, which is itself an abbreviation of the Ajis-dahaka of the Zendavesta.

Dahaka means in Zend "biting," or "the biter," and is etymo-logically connected with the Greek.
Phraortes, which in old Persian was Fravartish, seems to be a mere variant of the word which appears in the Zendavesta as fravashi, and designates each man's tutelary genius.

The derivation is certainly from fra, and probably from a root akin to the German wahren, French garder, English "ward, watch," etc.

The meaning is "a protector." Cyaxares, the Persian form of which was "Uvakhshatara," seems to be formed from the two elements it or hu, "well, good," and akhsha (Zend arsnd), "the eye," which is the final element of the name Cyavarswa in the Zendavesta.