Submitted Name Revision History

Of uncertain etymology, possibly derived from Greek ἄχος (achos) meaning "grief, pain, distress" (also see Achaios, Achilles). This was an Attic and Boeotian epithet of the goddess Demeter, possibly used in reference to her grief for the loss of her daughter Persephone.

It was also the name of an ancient region of Greece (better known by its latinized form Achaea) which was possibly named in honour of Demeter, or pre-Greek in origin. In the New Testament, Achaia and Macedonia are frequently mentioned together to indicate all Greece, being the two provinces into which the Romans divided Greece when it fell under their dominion.