Gender Feminine
Usage English, Dutch, Ancient Greek [1], Greek Mythology
Scripts Μέλισσα(Ancient Greek)
Meaning & History
Means "bee" in Greek. In Greek mythology this was the name of a daughter of Procles, as well as an epithet of various Greek nymphs and priestesses. According to the early Christian writer Lactantius [2] this was the name of the sister of the nymph Amalthea, with whom she cared for the young Zeus. Later it appears in Ludovico Ariosto's 1532 poem Orlando Furioso [3] belonging to the fairy who helps Ruggiero escape from the witch Alcina. As an English given name, Melissa has been used since the 18th century.
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Sources & References
- Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, available from https://search.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/browse.html?facet-nymRef=Μέλισσα.
- Page at https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Divine_Institutes/Part_I.
- Page at https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Orlando_Furioso/Canto_III.
