ULYSSES LEWIS

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 (but most common in Wales): from Lowis, Lodovicus, a Norman personal name composed of the Germanic elements hlod ‘fame’ + wīg ‘war’. This was the name of the founder of the Frankish dynasty, recorded in Latin chronicles as Ludovicus and Chlodovechus (the latter form becoming Old French Clovis, Clouis, Louis, the former developing into German Ludwig). The name was popular throughout France in the Middle Ages and was introduced to England by the Normans. In Wales it became inextricably confused with 2.