Strange name

[charuby.livejournal.com]

I was at work today and while on my break I happened to glance at a pinned up sheet of paper with the store names and numbers of the other branches of the company, as well as the names of each manager that ran each store. As I was scrolling through all the normal-sounding names, one caught my eye: Osiris.

I love the way it sounds and looks and assumed that the manager of that particular branch was a woman. I also knew it was Egyptian, but thought I'd Google it anyway.

'Osiris was an Egyptian god usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead. He was classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and holding a symbolic crook and flail.'

So now I'm not sure whether the manager is a man or a woman, but I do think it sounds feminine and would use it for a girl... but it's a shame since I wouldn't want to really name my daughter after a God of death and the underworld!

Comments

[redfield79.livejournal.com]

Sounds kind of like Persephone

[halliwell66.livejournal.com]

Its been a few years but I studied Ancient History in HS but Osiris was everywhere in all the tombs and temples. The meaning doesn't bother me he was also associated with re-birth.

I would always assume male, I see it as a masculine name (SSA says 100 boys vs 14 girls in 2013) but I can see the'Iris' could lend itself naturally as a nn

[okay-here-i-am.livejournal.com]

I think that's a male name traditionally- I have a friend whose son has that name. It is a cool name, I agree!! :-)

[roseofjuly.livejournal.com]

I'm familiar with mythology and so I instantly think of Osiris as a masculine name. I don't think the Egyptians had the negative associations with death that Westerners do now - Osiris was seen as the source of life after death and the representation of the Egyptians' belief in the cycles of life/nature - and so he was also associated with plant life and the flooding of the Nile River, which brought fertility and prosperity to Egypt during the right season. Osiris was also a really powerful god in the Egyptian tradition. It's really more of positive association than a negative one, despite him being the king of the dead/afterlife.

I would assume that the manager was a man, if named Osiris.