Entry № 8130 · Greek origin

Philomela Philomela — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ fih-loh-MEH-lah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Greek
Meaning
"Lover of song (the nightingale)"
Syllables
4
First recorded
Ancient (Greek)

A name that means "lover of song (the nightingale)".

Philomela (Φιλομήλα) combines the Greek philos (loving) and melos (song) — "lover of song." In Greek myth, Philomela was the Athenian princess transformed into a nightingale after her terrible suffering — she became the symbol of poetic voice through grief.

Eliot's The Waste Land.

Lover of song. The Greek nightingale.

The name in its native script.

Φιλομήλα
Transliteration
Philomḗla
Pronunciation
/ ˌfɪ.loʊˈmeɪ.lə /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Philomela stands.

Philomela does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Philomelas before her.

Real people
Philomela
Greek mythological figure.
In fiction
Philomela
Featured in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
8 CE

Names connected to Philomela.

The number behind Philomela.

1

The Leader

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Philomela reduce to 1, The Leader. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.