Talk:Vanessa (name)

Vanessa Rivas

The list mentions Vanessa Rivas, mentioning that she is not alive anymore. While the linked article does not reflect her death, furthermore mentioning a 2017 competiton here: https://www.swimcloud.com/swimmer/241038/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by JRStr (talk • contribs) 22:39, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The linked name is just wrong. I noticed it just now. JRStr (talk) 22:42, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Butterfly

'Vanessa' does indeed mean butterfly – or at least those of one particular genus. The New SOED certainly cites the girl's name as the origin of the word in this sense, but the Chambers Dictionary does not mention this theory – saying simply, "Perhaps for Phanessa, from Greek Phanes, a mystic divinity".

(Why a Swede, writing in Latin, would use a recently coined English girl's name for a genus of Lepidoptera is perhaps a question for another day...)

Whichever theory is true, there is no urban legend involved. An urban legend is an 'anecdote of modern life' (Chambers) – such as the kidney one – not an etymological assertion (whether mistaken or not). Grant 14:48, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

-essa ≠ -ισσα

That "theory" about a non-attested female form of Φάνης seems utterly spurious to me. The name Vanessa was coined in as bright a daylight of history as one could possibly hope for, without any need for additional explanations. The initial "V" is only explained by Esther Vanhomrigh's name, and there is really no reason why Swift, B.A. that he was, would have 1) invented a female form of an obscure androgynous deity, only to then 2) latinise it from -issa to -essa, and 3) change its initial "ph-" to "V". Trigaranus (talk) 13:39, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The similarity to ϝάνασσα, Mycenaean Greek for "queen", seems much more of note to me. Has anyone wrote about that? Slovborg (talk) 12:45, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Phanes

There are some sources say that the origin of the name is from the Greek god Phanes (mythology) --Muhib mansour (talk) 06:28, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Muhib mansour: Do u even read, bro? See the previous section. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:37, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]