Adonis

Meaning of Adonis

Adonis, a masculine forename of Hellenic provenance, ultimately derives from the Semitic honorific “adōn,” signifying “lord,” and entered the Greek lexicon—Ἄδωνις—as the mythic appellation of the youth whose exceptional beauty enthralled Aphrodite and whose cyclical death and rebirth came to symbolize vegetative renewal; through classical literature and later Anglo-American poetic tradition, the name accrued connotations of physical attractiveness and youthful vitality. Although once employed primarily as an epithet and literary allusion, Adonis began to gain modest traction as a given name in English-speaking contexts during the twentieth century, and contemporary U.S. birth records reveal a pronounced if gradual ascent: from annual occurrences that seldom exceeded single digits prior to the 1970s, the name advanced steadily, surpassing rank 600 by 2000, breaching the top 400 in 2018, and most recently attaining rank 198 with 1,713 newborns in 2024. This empirical trajectory suggests that modern parents, perhaps drawn by the name’s unequivocal mythological cachet and its phonetically resonant, three-syllable cadence (ə-DON-is), increasingly perceive Adonis as a distinctive yet culturally intelligible choice that balances classical gravitas with contemporary appeal.

Pronunciation

Greek

• Pronunced as ah-DON-is (/ə.ˈdɒ.nis/)

American English

• Pronunced as uh-DON-is (/ə.ˈdɑ.nɪs/)

• Ares
• Orion
• Achilles
• Apollo
• Atlas
• Hermes
• Zeus