Eudoxia
/juːˈdɒksiə/proper noun
A woman's name of Greek and Byzantine descent, still current in Greece and eastern Europe.
The Greek roots
Literally: “good glory”
The story of the word
The second half is the interesting one. In classical Greek δόξα means opinion, the shaky stuff that ἐπιστήμη is not, but the translators of the Septuagint used it for the Hebrew kavod, the weight and radiance of God, and Christian Greek never let go of that sense. So a philosopher's δόξα is a guess and a hymn's δόξα is splendour, and the name belongs to the hymn. The empress Aelia Eudoxia used hers to have John Chrysostom driven out of Constantinople.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English
Same family
In a sentence
Her grandmother was Eudoxia, shortened by everyone to Doxa.
Two Byzantine empresses called Eudoxia sit within a century of each other, which keeps historians careful.