Meaning & History
Derived from Greek ὠφέλεια (opheleia) meaning "help, advantage". This was a rare ancient Greek name, which was either rediscovered or recreated by the poet Jacopo Sannazaro for a character in his poem Arcadia (1480). It was borrowed by Shakespeare for his play Hamlet (1600), in which it belongs to the daughter of Polonius and the potential love interest of Hamlet. She eventually goes insane and drowns herself after Hamlet kills her father. In spite of this negative association, the name has been in use since the 19th century.
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Images
Depiction of Shakespeare's Ophelia by John William Waterhouse (1894)
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asteroids, authors, black history, Claymore characters, Dislyte characters, educators, Elder Scrolls characters, ends in -lia, Fire Emblem characters, Hamlet characters, help, isograms, literature, models, moons, moons of Uranus, paintings, poets, Reign of the Seven Spellblades characters, Shakespearean characters, Sims 2 characters, song titles, Squishmallows, storms, Tori Amos lyrics, Tori Amos songs, trendy, Vivy Fluorite Eye's Song characters, women and death
Sources & References
- Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, available from https://search.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/browse.html?facet-nymRef=Ὠφελία.