Aphrodite - Etymology

Etymology

The archaic (Homeric) pronunciation of the name Ἀφροδίτη was approximately . In Koine Greek, this became, changing further to in Byzantine Greek by iotacism. The most common English pronunciation of Aphrodite is /ˌæfrɵˈdaɪti/.

The etymology of Greek Ἀφροδίτη is unknown.

Hesiod connects it with ἀφρός (aphros) "foam," interpreting it as "risen from the foam".

This has been widely classified as a folk etymology, and numerous speculative etymologies, many of them not Greek, have been suggested in scholarship. Yet Janda (2010) considers the connection with "foam" genuine, identifying the myth of Aphrodite rising out of the waters after Cronus defeats Uranus as a mytheme of Proto-Indo-European age.

According to this interpretation, the name is from aphrós "foam" and déatai " seems" or "shines" (infinitive form *déasthai), meaning "she who shines from the foam ", a byname of the dawn goddess (Eos). J.P. Mallory and D.Q. Adams (1997) have also proposed an etymology based on the connection with the Indo-European dawn goddess, from *abhor- "very" and *dhei "to shine".

A number of speculative non-Greek etymologies have been suggested in scholarship.

The connection to Phoenician religion claimed by Herodotus I.105,131) has led to inconclusive attempts at deriving Greek Aphrodite from a Semitic Aštoret, via hypothetical Hittite transmission.

Another Semitic etymology compares Assyrian barīrītu, the name of a female demon found in Middle Babylonian and Late Babylonian texts.

The name probably means "she who (comes) at dusk", which would identify Aphrodite in her personification as the evening star, a significant parallel she shares with Mesopotamian Ishtar.

Another non-Greek etymology suggested by M. Hammarström, looks to Etruscan, comparing (e)pruni "lord", an Etruscan honorific loaned into Greek as πρύτανις. This would make the theonym in origin an honorific, "the lady". Hjalmar Frisk rejects this etymology as implausible.

The Etymologicum Magnum presents a medieval learned pseudoetymology, explaining Aphrodite as derived from the compound ἁβροδίαιτος habrodiaitos ("she who lives delicately" from ἁβρός habros + δίαιτα diaita) explaining the alternation between b and ph as a "familiar" characteristic of Greek "obvious from the Macedonians".