The preserved letters are best read as a personal name. Personal name Κύμβαλος is very rare. It is attested twice in Tegea, Arkadia: in IG V,2 38, line 52, in a list of names (IV/III cent BCE) where Kymbalos, son of Ariston is mentioned (V3a-4981); the second instance is SEG XI.1170 (LGPN V3a-7094), also IV century.

In our case, the omicron before kappa suggests the Genitive of the definite article and the name would have been in grammatical agreement, suggesting an ownership inscription, where Kymbalos would be the patronymic of the cup's owner. This hypothesis is made virtually certain by what to me looks like the second occurrence of this name at Berezan, also in an ownership graffito; it is also inscribed on the underside of a foot of a BG cup (the fragment is in the collection of the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv (inv. no. АБ.80-486), and the graffito reads [- -]οδωρο εἰμὶ το Κυμ̣[- -]. The ductus and lettershapes are similar in the two graffiti, so it is quite possible that both were inscribed by the same hand. That said, we cannot entirely rule out other restorations of the name Κυμ̣[- -]. Aside from several names of the Roman Imperial date, the only one that predates our case is Κυματοθέα from Corinth (LGPN V3a-23846), in the 6th century BCE, with no other instances from the Classical period, and two varieties only, Κυμαίων and Κυμινάνθη, from Chios and Delos respectively, in the Hellenistic period (LGPN V1-47748, V1-85486).

S.R. Tokhtasiev (“Граффити.” Борисфен-Березань. Начало античной эпохи в Северном Причерноморье. Каталог выставки. Государственный Эрмитаж, St. Petersburg, 2005, 140, no. 266) speculated that the inscription was of sympotic variety, and an ordinary noun κύμβαλα was mentioned. In light of the compranda for personal names, however, Tokhtasiev's suggestion seems unlikely.