Melissa refers to the plant Melissa officinalis, known as lemon balm.
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16 Facts About Melissa
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2.
Melissa is a common variant form, with others being Malissa, Melesa, Melessa, Meliza, Mellisa, Melosa, and Molissa.
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3.
Melissa was one of the nymph nurses of Zeus, sister to Amaltheia, but rather than feeding the baby milk, Melissa, appropriately for her name, fed him honey.
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4.
Melissa can be spelled Mellissa, Mellisa, Melisa, Malissa, Malisa, Mallissa, Mallisa and Milisa.
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5.
Name "Melissa" has a long history with roots reaching back to even before Ancient Greece.
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6.
Melissa fed Zeus goat's milk from Amalthea and fed him honey, giving him a permanent taste for it even once he came to rule on Mount Olympus.
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7.
Nymphs, such as Melissa, played an important role in mythic accounts of the origin of basic institutions and skills, as in the training of the culture heroes Dionysos and Aristaeus or the civilizing behaviors taught by the bee nymph.
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8.
The antiquarian Mnaseas' account of Melissa gives a good picture of her function as in this respect.
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9.
Melissa taught others to do this, and thus the creature was named for her, and she was made its guardian.
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10.
When Melissa's neighbors tried to make her reveal the secrets of her initiation, she remained silent, never letting a word pass from her lips.
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11.
From Porphyry's writings, scholars have learned that Melissa was the name of the moon goddess Artemis and the goddess who took suffering away from mothers giving birth.
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12.
Melissa was connected with the idea of a periodic regeneration.
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13.
For Bion long deplor'd his pain Thro' woods and devious wilds in vain;At last impell'd by deep despair, The swain proferr'd his ardent pray'r;His ardent pray'r Melissa heard, And every latent sorrow cheer'd, His days with social rapture blest, And sooth'd each anxious care to rest.
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15.
The name was very popular from the 1960s to the 1990s, today Melissa is a relatively uncommon baby name; in 2010, fewer than 2,500 girls were given the name, compared with around 10,000 in 1993 and well over 30,000 at the name's peak popularity in 1979.
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16.
In 2007, Melissa was the 137th most popular name for girls born in the United States, dropping steadily from its peak of second place in 1977.
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