Melissa Smith

(female) From the Greek word melissa ‘honey bee’. It is the name of the good witch who releases Rogero from the power of the bad witch Alcina in Ariosto's narrative poem Orlando Furioso (1532). The name was fairly popular in the 1990s, along with other girls’ names sharing the same first syllable.

English: occupational name for a worker in metal, from Middle English smith (Old English smið, probably a derivative of smītan ‘to strike, hammer’). Metalworking was one of the earliest occupations for which specialist skills were required, and its importance ensured that this term and its equivalents were perhaps the most widespread of all occupational surnames in Europe. Medieval smiths were important not only in making horseshoes, plowshares, and other domestic articles, but above all for their skill in forging swords, other weapons, and armor. This is the most frequent of all American surnames; it has also absorbed, by assimilation and translation, cognates and equivalents from many other languages (for forms, see Hanks and Hodges 1988).