Today’s name day travels easily across languages. Every Eva, Theodora, Dora and Violet you know shares in it, alongside the more distinctly Greek Evanthis, Evanthia and Efrosynos. It is the kind of day when a text to a classmate named Eva or a co-worker named Violet can turn into a simple, memorable introduction to a Greek custom.
Theodora of Alexandria was remembered as a 5th-century saint and martyr in Alexandria during the reign of Emperor Zeno. The surviving story, as noted by hagiographer Sabine Baring-Gould, may have been embellished and may have been assembled from elements found in the lives of other saints, especially Marina the Monk, another 5th-century Byzantine figure whose story followed strikingly similar lines.
The names themselves carry a wide cultural map. Eva is a shortened modern form used for Ευανθία in Greek, though the Greek name Ευανθία is built from eu, meaning good or well, and anthos, flower, giving it the sense of blooming well or fair-flowering. Evanthis comes from the same Greek root family. Theodora comes straight from Greek Theodora, the feminine form of Theodoros, from theos and doron, a gift. Violet arrives through English and French from Latin viola, the violet flower, while Efrosynos comes from Greek euphrosyne, a word for gladness, merriment and a brightness of spirit known since classical Greek literature.
In the Greek tradition of name days, the custom comes from Eastern Orthodox Christianity: a person’s name day is the feast day of the saint after whom they were named at baptism.
You can feel the names in the people around them. An Evanthia who always brings life to a table full of relatives, a Dora whose generosity somehow appears before anyone asks, a yiayia Violet whose garden still gives colour in September, a university friend named Eva who makes every gathering lighter, or an older neighbour named Efrosynos who never seems to lose his good humour. Some names arrive with their own atmosphere, and today’s set is full of warmth, bloom and cheer.
Chronia Polla! to everyone celebrating today, in Greek and non-Greek circles alike. If you know an Eva, Theodora, Dora, Violet, Evanthis, Evanthia or Efrosynos, today is a lovely day to wish them a happy name day and share a small Greek tradition they may not even know is theirs too.
