gonold..made a post about his name and its meaning got me thinking.. maybe a thread about names would be fun.

for years, i have read that my name, HELEN, is from a old greek word for a lighthouse (or an artifical light source) the Hel was from the same root word of helio (as in sun) but Helen was definiately signifigantly less than a sun!... (likewise Hellenism was the idea of old greek knowledge being a 'beacon light' to the world.)

lah de da, nice enough, but for this thread i consulted
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition/2000 and what they said was something totaly different!

Hel·en
PRONUNCIATION: hln
NOUN: Greek Mythology The daughter of Zeus and Leda and wife of Menelaus, considered to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Her abduction by Paris caused the Trojan War.
ETYMOLOGY: Greek Helen. See wel-2 in Appendix I.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE565.html
To turn, roll; with derivatives referring to curved, enclosing objects.
Derivatives include waltz, willow, wallow, revolve, valley, and helix.

Nothing to do with light! so whats the story of your name (real, or cyber name!--or the name you wished you had.)


my other obsession