Odysseus often receives the patronymic epithet Laertiades ( Λαερτιάδης), 'son of Laërtes'. Euryclea seems to suggest a name like Polyaretos, 'for he has much been prayed for' (πολυάρητος) but Autolycus 'apparently in a sardonic mood' decided to give the child another name commemorative of 'his own experience in life': 'Since I have been angered (ὀδυσσάμενος odyssamenos) with many, both men and women, let the name of the child be Odysseus'. In Book 19 of the Odyssey, where Odysseus' early childhood is recounted, Euryclea asks the boy's grandfather Autolycus to name him. Homer relates it to various forms of this verb in references and puns.

Ancient authors linked the name to the Greek verbs odussomai ( ὀδύσσομαι) 'to be wroth against, to hate', to oduromai ( ὀδύρομαι) 'to lament, bewail', or even to ollumi ( ὄλλυμι) 'to perish, to be lost'.

Some have supposed that 'there may originally have been two separate figures, one called something like Odysseus, the other something like Ulixes, who were combined into one complex personality.' However, the change between d and l is common also in some Indo-European and Greek names, and the Latin form is supposed to be derived from the Etruscan Uthuze (see below), which perhaps accounts for some of the phonetic innovations. In Latin, he was known as Ulixēs or (considered less correct) Ulyssēs. The form Oulixēs ( Οὐλίξης) is attested in an early source in Magna Graecia ( Ibycus, according to Diomedes Grammaticus), while the Greek grammarian Aelius Herodianus has Oulixeus ( Οὐλιξεύς). The form Ὀδυσ(σ)εύς Odys(s)eus is used starting in the epic period and through the classical period, but various other forms are also found. He is most famous for his nostos, or 'homecoming', which took him ten eventful years after the decade-long Trojan War. Son of Laërtes and Anticlea, husband of Penelope, and father of Telemachus, Acusilaus, and Telegonus Odysseus is renowned for his intellectual brilliance, guile, and versatility ( polytropos), and is thus known by the epithet Odysseus the Cunning ( Greek: μῆτις, translit. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in that same epic cycle. Odysseús, Odyseús, IPA: ), also known by the Latin variant Ulysses ( / juː ˈ l ɪ s iː z/ yoo- LISS-eez, UK also / ˈ juː l ɪ s iː z/ YOO-liss-eez Latin: Ulysses, Ulixes), is a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. In Greek and Roman mythology Odysseus ( / ə ˈ d ɪ s i ə s/ ə- DISS-ee-əs Greek: Ὀδυσσεύς, Ὀδυσεύς, translit. Head of Odysseus from a Roman period Hellenistic marble group representing Odysseus blinding Polyphemus, found at the villa of Tiberius at Sperlonga, Italy

Odyssey meaning pronunciation