Chapter LVI: Section VIII: Phile, &c

Φίλος (Philos) was a most obvious and natural opening for names. It stood alone as that of several Macedonian ladies, and again with numerous men called Philon.

Philemon (loving thought) was the good old Phrygian who, with his wife Baucis, entertained Zeus and Hermes, and were rewarded with safety when their churlish neighbours were destroyed. Philemon was very common among the Greeks, and the Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossian master of the runaway Onesimus, has made it one of the Scriptural names of the English. The Maories call it Pirimona.

The Ptolemys of Egypt were particularly fond of surnaming themselves after their love to their relations, though they generally contrived so to treat them as to make the epithet sound ironical: Ptolemy Philadelphos (love brother), _because_ he murdered his brother; Ptolemy Philopater, _because_ he poisoned his father; though at least Philometer does seem to have had a good mother, and to have loved her. Such surnames were imitated by the Greek kings of Pergamus, all of whom were named Attalus, and it was from Attalus Philadelphus, the second of them, that the city of Philadelphia, mentioned in the Apocalypse, took its title. This perished city of brotherly love seemed to William Penn to afford a suitable precedent for the title of the capital of his Quaker colony, which has ever since been Philadelphia. Less happily, Philadelphia has even been used among English women, apparently desirous of a large mouthful of a name.

Whether Philadelphia set the fashion, or whether the length of name is the allurement, Americans have a decided turn for all these commencements with ‘Phile’; and Philetus, Philander, &c., are to be found continually among the roughest inhabitants of the backwoods and far-west. With us they are at a discount, probably owing to the fashion of the last century of naming imaginary characters from the qualities they possessed.

Philaret, fond of virtue, is however popular in Russia, for the sake of some Eastern saint, who no doubt derived it from Philaretos, a Greek physician.

The verb πράσσω (prasso), to do or act, and the substantives πρᾶγμα (pragma), πρᾶξις (praxis), business, were fertile in derivatives.

The Christian interest of the words from this source is through Praxedes, who, according to the legend, was the daughter of the house in which St. Peter lodged at Rome, and devoted herself, together with her sister, to attending on Christians in prison, and burying them when they were put to death; a course of life that resulted in a glorious martyrdom. In honour of these two faithful women was built one of the first churches of Rome, consecrated, it is said, as early as 141, and still existing in all the glory of its ancient mosaics. Santa Prassede, as modern Rome terms it, gives title to a cardinal; and the admirable Carlo Borromeo was thus distinguished, deserving, perhaps, more than any other known ‘hinge-priest’ of Rome to be called after the saint of holy activity. Prassede has continued in vogue among Italian women, who frequently learn their names from Roman churches. I have found Plaxy in Cornwall, possibly from this source. Here, too, we should place Anysia (Ἀνύσια), from ἀνύω (anuo), to accomplish or complete. She was a maiden of Thessalonica, put to death there under Maximian. Her day is the 30th of October, in the Greek calendar, and Annusia is a Russian name, but she is not in the Roman calendar; and how the Normans heard of her it is hard to guess, unless it was either from the Sicilian Greeks, or in the Crusades; nevertheless, we are often met by Annys, Anisia, Annice, or Annes, in older pedigrees. The latter form occurs down to 1597 in the registers of the county of Durham. In later times the form was absorbed by Anne.

Τροφή, Trophe (food or nourishment), formed Τρόφιμος, Trophimos (the fruitful or nourishing), the name of an old Greek sculptor, and afterwards of the Ephesian companion of St. Paul who was left sick at Miletus. The people at Arles consider that he afterwards preached the Gospel in their city, and have made him the patron of their cathedral; but it is Russia that continues the use of his name as Trofeem.[38]

Even among the heathen Greeks, Τρυφή, Tryphe (daintiness, softness, or delicacy), had not a respectable signification. Yet Τρύφον, or Tryphon, was a favourite with persons of inferior rank—artists, architects, and physicians; and in the Decian persecution, a martyr so called was put to the extremity of torture in Bithynia, and has remained highly honoured in the calendar of the Greek Church; Trypho continuing in use as a Russian name.

The feminine form, Τρυφαίνα (Tryphæna), was given to two of the daughters of the Ptolemys in Egypt, where it was far from inappropriate; but, probably, the two women whom St. Paul greets so honourably at Rome as Tryphæna and Tryphosa, were either Alexandrian Jewesses whom he had met at Corinth on their way to Rome, or else merely so called as being the daughters of some Tryphon. They were not canonized, and the dainty Tryphæna has only been revived in England by the Puritan taste.