Greek Mythology Names in Different Languages: 169 Gods and Heroes

How a Greek name travels

Every name in these tables starts in Ancient Greek and reaches the other languages along one of two roads. The older road runs through Latin. Romans retold the myths with their own gods, so Zeus became Iuppiter, Hera Iuno, Athena Minerva and Odysseus Ulixes, and the Romance languages inherited those forms: Spanish Ulises, Italian Ulisse, French Ulysse. The younger road goes straight back to the Greek, and it is the one German, Polish and the Slavic languages mostly follow: Odysseus, Odyseusz, Одиссей.

Each language then fits the name to its own grammar. Lithuanian and Latvian add case endings, so Achilles is Achilas and Ahillejs and Odysseus Odisėjas and Odisejs. Georgian adds a final -i, ოდისევსი (Odisevsi) and პრიამოსი (Priamosi) for Priam. Hungarian spells the Greek sounds its own way: Akhilleusz, Odüsszeusz, Zeusz. Modern Greek has moved on from the classical forms too, so Ancient Ἀχιλλεύς is Αχιλλέας today and Ζεύς is usually Δίας.

Hebrew, Arabic and Persian transcribe the names letter by letter, and the romanised rows show how the vowels were filled in: Arabic أخيل (Aḫīl) for Achilles, Hebrew פרומתאוס (Prōmeteʾūs) for Prometheus, Persian زئوس (Zeus). Arabic and Persian also keep a few names that came through Latin or French, such as أوليس (Ūlīs) beside أوديسيوس (Ūdīsiyūs) for Odysseus and Persian هرکول (Herkul) for Heracles.

The tables run alphabetically by the English name, one column per figure, one row per language. German appears twice, the second time in the long-s spelling of Fraktur type (Odyſſeus, Meduſa). Where a cell holds two names, they are separated by a semicolon, and the Latin row gives the Roman god where the Romans identified one with the Greek: Venus for Aphrodite, Mars for Ares, Diana for Artemis.