Śuri is the name of an important Etruscan god, most often identified with the blazing sun and the powers of the underworld. Ancient sources connect him with fire, purification, and oracular prophecy. His cult was centered on Mount Soracte in central Italy. His sacred animal was the wolf. His name was later latinized by the Romans to Soranus.
The name is derived from the Etruscan word śur 𐌛𐌖𐌑 meaning “black; from the dark place.”
Sohrab (Persian: سهراب) is a classic Persian male name. It is most famous from the Shahnameh. In the epic, Sohrab is the heroic son of Rostam and Tahmineh. He is celebrated for his beauty and courage. He is known for his tragic duel with his father Rostam. It is one of the most famous episodes in Persian literature. His story has inspired countless Persian miniatures, operas, and poems. There are also even Western adaptations. One example is Matthew Arnold’s 19th-century poem Sohrab and Rustum.
Scholars derive it from Middle Persian, Suhrāv / Sōhrāv. It is composed of suhr / sohr (سهر) – “red, ruddy, rosy, dawn-colored.” The term āb آب means “water,” but in old compound names, it figuratively represents “essence, fluid, brightness, radiance.” The latter may also be related to آو / او (âv / ô / ow), which is an older or poetic variant meaning, “sound” or “voice.” In some historical compounds, it functions like âb to indicate “substance” or “radiance.”
The name appears not only in Iran, but is found across the Persianate world, including Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Azerbaijan. It also exists among Central Asian and South-Asian communities influenced by Persian literature, and Zurab ზურაბ is its Georgian form.
The name ultimately comes from Greek Νεῖλος (Neílos), the ancient Greek name of the River Nile.
In Ancient Egyptian, the river was called jtr-w (Iteru, “Great River”). The Greek form Neílos may reflect a Semitic root n-h-r, meaning “river,” which is also the source of Hebrew nahar and related words.
In Greek mythology, Neilos was personified as the river-god of the Nile, one of the Potamoi (river deities).
The Latinized form Nilus became a well-known monastic name and is borne by several Christian saints, including St. Nilus the Syrian, a disciple of St. John Chrysostom, and St. Nilus of Sinai.
Nil is the Slavic form used for males. In Turkey, the same name arose independently as a female given name of the same etymology.
In Italian, it may also be used as a short form ofDanilo.
An Italian feminine form is Nila.
Nile is an English name that was often used in reference to the surname. It may make an interesting modern adaptation for parents looking for a cool but modern saints name.
The name appears in Greek mythology. It is connected to a woman who killed herself when her love for Demophon was not returned. She was transformed into an almond or hazelnut tree, depending on the legend. It comes directly from the Greek word, Φυλλίς, meaning, “leaves, foliage,” which shares a root with the words chlorophyll and phyllotaxis. Its Turkish form of Filiz comes from the same root but the meaning slightly changes to “sprout; root.”
It also appears as the name of a minor river god of Bithynia.
It came into widespread use in England in the 16th-century and later spread to the rest of the Anglosphere.
Early Puritan records occasionally include Phyllis/Phillis, reflecting classical learning even among settlers. Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784), the first published African-American female poet, is a striking historical bearer.
An 18th-century English short form was Lissie or Lissy.
It frequently appears in Elizabethan and Restoration poetry and drama. Poets such as Ben Jonson and Andrew Marvell used “Phyllis” as a stock name for a beloved in pastoral verse. Later modernists like Ezra Pound continued this tradition. This usage helped keep it familiar to English speakers for centuries.
It marked its presence in baroque operas (e.g., Handel’s Acis and Galatea includes a character named Phyllis) and in folk songs of the British Isles.
Victorian painters of the Pre-Raphaelite school sometimes chose the Phyllis and Demophon story for mythological canvases.
In the United States, it appeared in the Top 100 Female Names between 1915-1958, peaking at #24 in 1929. In the U.K., it came in at #14 in 1914, #4 in New Zealand in 1911, and #29 in 1922 in Canada.
Its Turkish offshoot of Filiz appeared in the Turkish Top 100 between 1980-1996, peaking at #11 between 1980-1982.
Today, the name is considered dated in the English-speaking world.
Phillyda, pronounced /ˈfɪl.ɪ.də/ in English is an alternate form.
The name is likely derived from the Welsh word, teg, meaning (fair; comely; beautiful; handsome). It has also been suggested to be a Welsh form of the Latin male name, Tacitus (quiet, serene).
Tegid Foel—whose epithet Foel means “bald” in Welsh—is a shadowy but evocative figure in Welsh mythology. He is remembered as the husband of the enchantress Ceridwen and the father of Creirwy and Morfran (Afagddu), the family whose story frames the birth of the poet-prophet Taliesin.
His name is inseparable from Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake), the largest natural lake in Wales. Local lore long treated the lake as a living presence, and many scholars think Tegid may once have been its protective spirit or ancestral deity. It is believed his court is within the shadowy depths of Bala Lake. The same lake is also said to have a large Loch Ness like sea-monster living in it, named Teggie.
In 2024, 5 babies were given this as a name in the U.K.
The name appears in Norse Mythology as the name of the first woman, who has a husband named Ask. They are attested to in the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda.
The name Embla itself may derive from the Proto-Norse *elm-la (elm tree), the Proto-Norse *Ambilō (vine) or the Proto-Norse eim + la (firemaker) and it has even been connected with the Germanic root word, amal (work).
It is first attested to in Sweden in 1882, in Norway in 1900, and in Iceland after 1950, however, it may have been in use in Medieval times as well.
Between 2010 and 2016, this was among the most popular female names in Iceland. In Iceland, it peaked at #8 in 2016 . It is currently the 96th Most Popular Female Name in Norway (2023).
The name comes directly from the Greek ἴον (ion) meaning “violet” and ἄνθος (anthos). It is borne in Greek mythology by an Oceanid nymph who was responsible for violet flowers and purple tinged clouds. It is also the name of Cretan woman in Greek mythology who marries Iphis after she is turned into a man by Aphrodite.
It was in vogue in 19th-century England, being the nickname for Lady Charlotte Harley, by Lord Byron to whom the poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage is dedicated. It was also used by Percey Bysshe Shelley’s poem, Queen Mab, in which it is the name of a character. Shelley later named his daughter Ianthe. It is also the name of a character in John William Polidori’s 1819 short story, The Vampyre. It was the pen-name of American writer and poet, Emma Catherine Embury (1806-1863).
In recent literature, it is the name of a character in the Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas.
Pron: Eng (i-DAH-lee-ah; id-DAHL-yah); Pol (ee-DAHL-yah)
The name can have a few different origins and meanings. It does seem to appear in use in Medieval France, in this case, it may be an elaborated form of a Germanic name, perhaps related to a Frankish element, idal (unknown meaning) or the Old Norse ið, meaning “work.” Alternately, it appears in Greek mythology as an epithet for the goddess Aphrodite. In this case, the etymology is from the name of city on the island of Cyprus called Idalion, in which a temple to Aphrodite existed. The etymology of the city name itself is from the Greek Eidon helios, “I saw the sun.”
The name has had use across Europe. In Poland, it came into use in the 19th-century when Juliusz Słowacki used it as the name of a heroin in his 1866 play, Fantazy. It was thereafter used as the name of a character in the 1909 novel, Trędowata by Helena Mniszkówna.
In Poland, it has appeared in and out of the 200 most popular female names between 2010 and 2022, peaking at #172 in 2021.
In 2023, 160 girls were given this name in the United States.
Nectar is the English form of the Greek NektariosΝεκτάριος, which is derived from νέκταρ (nektar), meaning “nectar, the drink of the gods. Nectar is not a name that has ever been in common use in the English-speaking world, but since it is the name of several Eastern and Western Christian saints, the proper English male translation of the name would be Nectar; or it would have appeared thus in the calendar.
It was borne by St. Nectaire of Auvergne, a 4th-century Christian missionary to the Gauls in what is now the Massif Central region of France. According to Gregory of Tours, he was sent by Pope Fabian, along with his brothers, where he transformed a temple that was dedicated to Apollo on Mont Cornadore into a cathedral that still stands, and was subsequently beheaded by the local Gaulic chieftain. The commune of Saint-Nectaire in the Puy-de-Dôme department of France gets its name from him, as does the cheese of the same name; or the latter technically comes from the Marshal of Senneterre, which is a linguistic corruption of Saint-Nectaire.
