Entry № 9175 · Greek origin

Sappho Sappho — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ SAH-foh /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Greek
Meaning
"The lyric poet of Lesbos"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Ancient (Greek)

A name that means "the lyric poet of lesbos".

Sappho (Σαπφώ, c. 630-570 BCE) was the Greek lyric poet of the island of Lesbos — Plato called her "the Tenth Muse." Her poems of love and longing survive only in fragments but defined Western lyric poetry.

The words "lesbian" and "sapphic" derive from her name and island.

Plato called her the Tenth Muse.

The name in its native script.

Σαπφώ
Transliteration
Sapphṓ
Pronunciation
/ ˈsæf.oʊ /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Sappho stands.

Sappho 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.

Sapphos before her.

Real people
Sappho
Greek lyric poet.
c. 630 – 570 BCE
In fiction
Sappho
Title of Alphonse Daudet's novel.
1884 novel

Names connected to Sappho.

The number behind Sappho.

3

The Communicator

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Sappho reduce to 3, The Communicator. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.