Ianthe

The meaning of Ianthe is ‘violet flower' and it is a name of Greek origin. Traditionally, it is a name given to girls. It is formed from the Greek words ‘iole’ which means 'violet' and ‘anthos’ which means 'flower'. According to Greek mythology, Ianthe was the name of a sea nymph who was the daughter of the Titan god, Oceanus. She was an Oceanid, a word that referred to all the offsprings of Oceanus and Tethys. Her parents were married siblings of their parents, Uranus and Gaia. They inhabited the world’s freshwater. Ianthe's beauty was so cherished that the gods planted delicate purple flowers around her grave after she died. In Roman mythology, it is the name of a girl who married Iphis, a woman who was raised as a man but was later turned into a male by the goddess Isis. Ianthe is the name of a character in the poem titled ‘Queen Mab’ written by the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.