PHYLLIS SIMON

Name of a minor character in Greek mythology who killed herself for love and was transformed into an almond tree; the Greek word phyllis means ‘foliage’, so clearly her name doomed her from the start.

English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish (Simón), Czech and Slovak (Šimon), Slovenian, Hungarian, and Jewish (Ashkenazic): from the personal name, Hebrew Shim‘on, which is probably derived from the verb sham‘a ‘to hearken’. In the Vulgate and in many vernacular versions of the Old Testament, this is usually rendered Simeon. In the Greek New Testament, however, the name occurs as Simōn, as a result of assimilation to the preexisting Greek byname Sīmōn (from sīmos ‘snub-nosed’). Both Simon and Simeon were in use as personal names in western Europe from the Middle Ages onward. In Christendom the former was always more popular, at least in part because of its associations with the apostle Simon Peter, the brother of Andrew. In Britain there was also confusion from an early date with Anglo-Scandinavian forms of Sigmund (see Siegmund), a name whose popularity was reinforced at the Conquest by the Norman form Simund.