Everyday LifeGreek → English
Pelagia
/pəˈleɪdʒiə/proper noun
A female given name borne by several early saints.
The Greek roots
πέλαγος
pélagos
open sea
πελαγία
pelagía
of the sea
Literally: “she of the open sea”
The story of the word
Πέλαγος is the open water away from any coast, which is why biologists call that zone pelagic and why an archipelago began as a name for the Aegean itself, the chief sea, before it came to mean a scatter of islands. Pelagia, of the sea, belonged to more than one early saint, including the actress of Antioch whose legend has her leaving the stage for a cell on the Mount of Olives. The name is still current in Greece and gave Italian Pelagia and Spanish Pelaya.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
Same family
pelagicarchipelagobathypelagic
In a sentence
Her aunt Pelagia had been named for the saint's day she was born on.