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Mermaid Names: Beyond Madison and Ariel
Mermaid Names: Beyond Madison and Ariel
Oct 6, 2024 10:10 PM

  Mermaid names have made it big in recent years.  There’s Madison, Darryl Hannah’s character from Splash.  Disney christened The Little Mermaid Ariel in 1989, and she and her princess friends are now found on little girls’ gear everywhere you look.

  Beyond Madison and Ariel: Other Famous Mermaids

  Coralia – An underwater realm in Flash Gordon, but also a name for a mermaid in a nineteeth-century ballet

  Deema – From the new Nickelodeon series Bubble Guppies, about a group of preschoolers and their adventures with teacher Mr. Grouper

  Diana – From 2003 movie Mermaids, about a trio of fish-tailed sisters who set off to avenge the death of their merman father

  June – From 2003 movie Mermaids

  Lorelei – From German folktales, now better known as the given name of both Gilmore Girls – though mother and daughter spelled it Lorelai

  Melody – Ariel’s daughter in the extended Little Mermaid universe

  Miranda – In a 1948 British comedy, a lonely fisherman catches the mermaid Miranda and the duo set off on a madcap tour of London

  Molly – Another of the Bubble Guppies

  Muirgen – An Irish story says that she was brought from the sea and baptized, and in some tellings, became a saint

  Nixie – Yet another name for a water-dwelling spirit

  Ondine – A German water sprite who marries a mortal, but never gets her happily ever after.  In 2009, Colin Farrell played a fisherman who makes a surprising catch in the movie Ondine; Audrey Hepburn rose to fame playing Ondine on Broadway in 1954.

  Oona – Another of the Bubble Guppies

  Sabrina – The name of a water nymph in John Milton’s Comus, and an ancient Celtic river goddess, too

  Thessalonike – Sister of Alexander the Great, said to have turned into a mermaid

  Undine – A variant of Ondine, but perhaps not as wearable

  Venus – From 2003 movie Mermaids, and known for posing on a shell in the Botticelli painting

  Names That Would Fit a Mermaid

  Avalon – A medieval tale tells of three sisters growing up on the lost Isle of Avalon.  The eldest, Melusine, was cursed to spend one day a week as a mermaid.

  Cleodora – The daughter of a river god and lover of Poseidon

  Doris – An ocean nymph from Greek myth

  Ianthe – Another ocean nymph

  Marina – From the Latin marinus – of the sea

  Melusina – A slightly more name-like version of melusine, and the name of an illegitimate daughter of England’s King George I

  Nerissa – Ultimately derived from the Greek word for water, and also used by Shakespeare for a minor character in The Merchant of Venice.

  Oceane – Pronounced oh SEE ahn, she’s big in the French-speaking world

  Pearl – The jewel of the ocean

  Sedna – An Inuit goddess of the sea

  Tethys – An ancient Greek sea goddess, and mother of thousands of water nymphs

  Waverly – Not related to the word wave, but the connection is irresistible

  Ariel’s big sisters in The Little Mermaid

  Adella

  Alana

  Andrina

  Aquata – Probably the least wearable of the group

  Arista

  Attina

  From the mermaid statues of Norfolk, Virginia

  Azalea

  Beatrice

  Dominique

  Jewel

  Lola

  Meimadeline

  Memory

  Ocarina

  Shellina

  Sybil

  Mishell

  And if you’re expecting a little merman, there’s always Triton.

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