Myth & LegendGreek → English
Hermione
/hɜrˈmaɪəni/proper noun
A woman's name, in myth the daughter of Menelaus and Helen of Sparta.
The Greek roots
Ἑρμῆς
Hermês
Hermes, the messenger god
ἕρμα
hérma
heap of stones, prop
Literally: “she of Hermes”
The story of the word
Homer gives her one line as the only child of Menelaus and Helen, left in Sparta when her mother sailed for Troy, and Euripides built her a bitter marriage in the Andromache. Shakespeare took the name for the wronged queen of The Winter's Tale, and J.K. Rowling took it from Shakespeare, which is why a Muggle-born witch carries a Spartan princess's name. The name is feminine to Hermes, god of boundaries, messages and thieves, whose own name is usually traced to ἕρμα, the roadside stone heap that marked a way.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
Same family
hermeticherm
In a sentence
Two girls in the class were called Hermione, and neither had read the Greek.