ULYSSES JONES

Latin form of the Greek name Odysseus, borne by the famous wanderer of Homer's Odyssey. The name is of uncertain derivation (it was associated by the Greeks themselves with the verb odyssesthai ‘to hate’). Moreover, it is not clear why the Latin form should be so altered; mediation through Etruscan has been one suggestion. As an English given name it has occasionally been used in England from the 16th century and more commonly in America in the 19th and 20th centuries (like other names of classical origin such as Homer and Virgil). It was the name of the 18th president of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant (1822–85). It has also been used in Ireland as a classicizing form of Ulick.

English and Welsh: patronymic from the Middle English personal name Jon(e) (see John). The surname is especially common in Wales and southern central England. In North America this name has absorbed various cognate and like-sounding surnames from other languages. (For forms, see Hanks and Hodges 1988).