Latin3 syllablesLiterary
Meaning: disputed; the Latin form of Greek Odysseus.
Ulysses
Ulysses is Odysseus in Roman dress — and the most famous American to carry it was given it by a clerk's mistake he never bothered to undo.
| Origin | Latin — Ulixes, later Ulysses, the Roman form of Greek Odysseus, most likely reaching Latin through Etruscan |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Genuinely disputed. Homer plays on Greek odyssomai, "to be angry with, to hate"; many philologists treat Odysseus as pre-Greek and unanalysable |
| Pronunciation | yoo-LISS-eez (three syllables, stress in the middle) |
| Popularity | Outside the current U.S. top 100; never common in America except in the generation named after the general |
| Variants | Ulises (Spanish), Ulisse (Italian), Ulixes, Odysseus |
| Nicknames | Uly, Lys, Sess — Grant's family called him Ulys |
| Namesake | Ulysses S. Grant, 18th U.S. president, whose middle initial stands for nothing at all |
History & meaning
The Greek hero is Odysseus. The Latin is Ulixes, and the gap between the two is wide enough that the transfer almost certainly ran through a dialect form and then through Etruscan, where the hero appears as Uthuze. Latin later smoothed Ulixes into Ulysses, and that is the spelling English inherited by way of Virgil, Dante and Tennyson. As for what it meant to begin with, be careful: Homer offers a pun in book nineteen of the Odyssey, where the grandfather names the boy for the anger he feels toward the world, but that is storytelling rather than etymology. Most linguists now suspect the name predates Greek altogether.
In America the name arrived with the classical revival, and then one bearer swallowed it whole. Hiram Ulysses Grant was nominated to West Point by a congressman who misremembered him, writing the boy down as Ulysses S. Grant — the S. an assumption borrowed from his mother's maiden name, Simpson. The academy declined to correct the paperwork, Grant kept the name for life, and after Fort Donelson the initials were being read as Unconditional Surrender. He always insisted the S. stood for nothing.
Why parents choose it
It is heroic without being ornamental, it carries a presidency and an epic at once, and no other boy in the class will have it. The catch is length and the shortage of an obvious everyday short form.
Middle names for Ulysses
Three syllables and a soft ending want something short and consonantal: Ulysses James, Ulysses Cole, Ulysses Grant, Ulysses Reid. See the middle names guide for the reasoning.
Famous Ulysseses
Beyond the president, Ulysses Bridgeman spent a decade with the Milwaukee Bucks before becoming one of the largest restaurant franchise owners in the country. The name's cultural weight is mostly literary, though: Tennyson's 1842 poem and James Joyce's 1922 novel are why it still sounds like an argument for something.
Consider instead
Ulises is the same name worn lightly, and genuinely ordinary in Mexico. Homer hands you the poet rather than the hero. Cassius gives similar Roman heft with an easier nickname built in. More options sit on the U names page.