If you want to safeguard your child from teasing (because children can be cruel, I should know), you can give them this name (It's pretty rad), but you might want them to use a nickname like Medie or something, I dunno. But this name is really cool!
Name of the Day for November 15, 2021!Not gonna lie, I kind of love Medusa as a name. But it would be pretty impossible to live with - too many jokes about snake-hair, snake-heads, and turning people to stone.
I think Medusa was a wronged woman. She was raped by Zeus, then Zeus's wife, Hera, punished Medusa by making her ugly and having the ability to turn men to stone. So, essentially Medusa was punished for being raped. That is so, so sick and messed up. Here we are, loving Hera and despising Medusa because she was "ugly."
No, I disagree completely. It's not Zeus but Poseidon has r@ped her. Then it's not Hera but it's Athena has punished her at temple. Your comment is wrong and I don't understand why 12 likes 🤦♂️.
― Anonymous User 11/16/2023, edited 11/16/2023
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The name is pretty cool for a fictional character.
I was almost named Medusa, but no one would let my mother name me such. Medusa is such a beautiful name. I can't understand why people would be against it.
― Anonymous User 5/21/2019
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Why would you want to name your child after a monster?
Better for an RPG character than a real person. I definitely like the name, but there's too many negative associations that would likely come up and give a child grief.
I like this name because it sounds really pretty. I'd use this name for my child because I like snakes and in another culture Medusa's a snake goddess of wisdom, but I have other names I'd like to use instead.
― Anonymous User 2/19/2017
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In Britain, this is often pronounced meh-DYOO-sa or meh-JOO-sa.
Many people are citing that "Greek mythology" held that Medusa was originally the most beautiful woman in the world. This isn't true. While it is true that Ovid (a ROMAN poet) crafted up the pretty Medusa/Poseidon rape tale, Greek myth held that she was hideous beyond measure. Pindar calls her "fair faced" at one point, but besides that one instance you've got centuries of the Gorgons as the most hideous/terror inducing images in existence. In the Iliad, just the thought of the image made Hector's blood run cold. An ancient apotropaic symbol, the Gorgoneion, is a manifestation of Medusa. This image was used to scare away evil because it was just so hideous.
Some feminists and neo-pagans view Medusa as the archetype of the angry, violated priestess, and Athena as the traitor to the goddess culture. Medusa represents the beautiful, sensual, egalitarian priestesses who were raped and abused by the violent patriarchal invaders. She then turned into an ugly, evil-eyed woman so no man would rape her. Athena represents the woman who accepted the patriarchal views of a chaste, obedient woman and turned against the old form of the goddess that included death, magic, and non-reproductive sexuality. Killing Medusa could be translated as killing the last traces of the 'dark goddess'.I think Medusa conjures up too many negatives images to be a first name, but this might be a great middle name or pet name.
The Medusa of Greek mythology was a ravishingly beautiful maiden, originally. The myth tells that Medusa had been a priestess of Athena, who fell for Poseidon. When Athena found Medusa and Poseidon together, she was so enraged, that she cursed Medusa with the writhing serpants for her hair, and made her face "so terrible to behold that the mere sight of it turned onlookers to stone." Her sisters, Stheno and Euryale, were also made into these creatures, for standing beside their sister when she was cursed.Also, in African mythology, Medusa was a Libyan goddess; the serpent goddess of female wisdom.
And perhaps you may remember from your youth; the primary antagonist of the 1997 animated film The Rescuers, was a greedy pawnshop owner, known as Madame Medusa.
I don't really have an issue with who she was in Greek mythology. It just wouldn't come up often/ever in my area. That being said, I don't think this is a very attractive name. Reminds me too much of 'seduce'.
I like Medusa, but could never use it because of the snake haired gorgon. Although from reading more about her story she doesn't sound so bad to be known for. It seems like she was just another mortal who got caught up in the Greek gods arguments and revenge. The name itself is pretty. It has a familiar ring but is unfamiliar and can come with plenty of nicknames (Medy, Dusa, Eddie) and is just kinda cute in my opinion.
― Anonymous User 11/16/2010
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I personally think Medusa is a very pretty name, but I wouldn't use it myself, since in Spanish, "Medusa" means "jellyfish".
― Anonymous User 1/30/2010
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I actually think Medusa is a beautiful name. But use it I would NOT. Perhaps if my daughter was born with snake hair.
Well, I definitely wouldn't name my child this. It's not that I think it's an ugly name, however. It's interesting and has a unique background, but the name itself just doesn't seem like something I would name a little girl. Not to mention it's quite likely that a little girl named this would probably dislike her parents after she discovered it's origin. Despite all that though, it's a pretty name that shouldn't be used for a child, but maybe a pet snake.
Due to the fact that the name Medusa conjures up an image of a ugly woman with snakes for hair, I would never give someone this name. The poor child, being named after a monster.
Medusa was actually very beautiful. She was so beautiful she had a curse placed on her, which is why she became the way everyone knows her as.
― Anonymous User 11/26/2008
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Medusa was the daughter of Phorkys and Keto. She was one of three. She was also the only mortal one of her and her sisters. She was very beautiful and lived in the far north where there was no sun. Being curious she wanted to see the sun. She asked Athena for permission to visit the south to see the sun. Athena denied her permission. Medusa grew very angry and said Athena denied her permission because she was jealous of her beauty and for that Athena gave her snakes for hair and was made so ugly anyone who looked into her eyes would be turned into stone as punishment for what she had said.
― Anonymous User 11/26/2008
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I cannot stand this name. I don't care what the story has to say specifically, but when I think of Medusa I think of two things: ugly and nausea. I think nausea because in Six Flags Great Adventure there is a ride called Medusa and it has so many loops it makes me sick just thinking about it. I would never name my daughter this because 1-I am not Greek, 2-This name is ugly, 3-there are no cute nicknames for Medusa, 4-she would be constantly made fun of, and 5-for some reason this name sounds masculine to me. I want my daughter to have a very feminine name.
― Anonymous User 11/16/2008
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This is just plain horrible to name your child. Who wants to share a name with an ugly monster who had snakes for hair?
What a weird name. If you named your daughter this, she wouldn't be very happy to find out it was the name for ugly women with snakes for hair. The name itself doesn't sound pleasant at all.
Don't name a child this, it's a horrible name. There was a French ship called the Medusa that sunk and about fifty people were left on one raft. Only twelve survived, and they had to resort to cannibalism to stay alive.
According to the mythology, Medusa actually wasn't a hideously ugly woman. The legend goes that she was the most beautiful woman in the world, but that the face she was making was so hideous that it turned anyone who looked at it to stone.
I like the name Medusa, and even though she was not an evil person (or whatever she was), most people think she was and I wouldn't name a child this. Perhaps a pet though, maybe a cat.
― Anonymous User 4/9/2007
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Not very pretty at all. I'd really hate it if this was my name!
I think this name has a bad reputation because Medusa was supposedly so unlovely. But most modern interpretations of Medusa look on her more kindly and I think she's nearly a feminist icon now--turning men into stone and all. It must also be remembered that Medusa was beautiful in the beginning, and so the girl who has this name will always be beautiful, inside if nowhere else. I think also that snakes, like the snakes for her hair, are linked closely with former fallen women that, in the male-dominated world, were cast aside. Lilith, of Biblical stories, was the snake that tempted Eve. Lilith was Adam's first wife, cast from heaven because she refused the missionary position. Medusa seems to be another femme fatale figure, along with succubus Lilith, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Anne Boleyn, and almost any female vampire (like Anne Rice's Akasha).
According to Greek mythology, Medusa was originally the most beautiful one of the Gorgons, which was why Poseidon, the God of the sea, took a fancy to her and asked to have sex with her. She agreed, but unfortunately, just for kicks, he wanted to do it in the temple of Athene, the chaste Godess of wisdom and the patroness of the city of Athens, who had hated Poseidon ever since he tried to sink down Athens just to expand his watery region. Naturally, this horrible disgrace of her temple enfuriated the chaste Athene, so she took revenge at Medusa by turning her into the hideous, snake-haired monster we all know and love, and whom she eventually helped Perseus destroy by telling him to look only at the monster's reflection. Also, after Perseus decapitated Medusa, Athene put the image of her head into her shield and made it one of her symbols.
― Anonymous User 7/15/2005
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