Spanish3 syllablesClassical
Meaning: the Spanish name of Homer's Odysseus.
Ulises
In English, Ulysses is a general, a novel and a poem. In Mexico, Ulises is the boy two rows over, and nobody thinks twice about it.
| Origin | Spanish form of the Latin Ulixes, later respelled Ulysses, the Roman name for the Greek hero Odysseus |
|---|---|
| Meaning | No settled meaning. In the Odyssey the hero's grandfather names him from odyssomai, to be angry or to bear a grudge — the man of wrath, or the man others resent. Homer's pun is the oldest explanation anyone has |
| Pronunciation | oo-LEE-ses in Spanish; the English Ulysses is yoo-LISS-eez |
| Popularity | Outside the current U.S. top 100; an unremarkable everyday name in Mexico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, and decidedly rare in English |
| Variants | Ulisse (Italian), Ulixes, Odysseus (Greek), Odisseu (Portuguese) |
| Nicknames | Uli, Ulis |
| Source | Homer's Odyssey; Ulixes is the form Virgil and Ovid used, and the l for d came in through Greek dialects of southern Italy |
History & meaning
The Greek hero is Odysseus, and Book 19 of the Odyssey supplies a naming scene: his grandfather Autolycus, a man with grudges of his own, says he has been resented by many and so the child shall be Odysseus, on the verb odyssomai. That is a poet's pun rather than a lexicographer's entry, but it is the oldest account in existence and Greek writers happily repeated it. Rome did not get the name from Athens. It came up through the Greek-speaking cities of southern Italy and through Etruscan, where the d had already turned into an l, so Latin wrote Ulixes and later dressed it up as Ulysses to look more Greek. Spanish took the Latin and gave it Spanish stress: Ulises.
The interesting part for an English reader is how ordinary the name is in Spanish. English quarantines its classical names — an American Ulysses is either a Civil War general or a difficult novel. Spanish never did. Héctor is completely unremarkable, and Homero, Aquiles, Eneas, Virgilio and Ulises are all live given names on Latin American birth certificates. In Mexico the door opened wider in 1859, when the Reform Laws moved birth registration from the parish to the state and a child's name no longer had to be found in the saints' calendar. The republican and classical enthusiasms of that generation went straight into the registry, which is why a Mexican Ulises reads as a man from a family with books, not as a costume.
Why parents choose it
It is the whole Odyssey in three syllables: cunning, endurance, the long way home. It has a natural short form in Uli, it is spelled the way it sounds in Spanish, and in the United States it signals a Spanish-speaking family without asking anyone to learn a new sound.
Middle names for Ulises
The name is already unusual, so a plain partner steadies it: Ulises Gabriel, Ulises Andrés, Ulises Rafael, Juan Ulises. The middle names guide covers pairing an unusual first name with a familiar second.
Famous Ulises
Ulises Heureaux dominated Dominican politics from 1882 until his assassination in 1899, first as president and then as dictator. Ulises Dumont was one of Argentina's most recognisable screen actors, with more than a hundred films behind him by his death in 2008. On the English side the name belongs to Ulysses S. Grant, commanding general of the Union army and eighteenth president, and to James Joyce's novel of a single Dublin day — see Ulysses for that half of the story.
Consider instead
Ulysses is the English form, rarer at home than Ulises is in Mexico. Héctor is the Homeric name that Spanish absorbed most completely. Dante gives you the same literary reach from a later shelf, and travels just as easily.