Ἀφροδίτη

Hesiod, writing around 700 BCE, gave the canonical origin: Aphrodite was born from aphros, the sea-foam that formed when Kronos severed Ouranos's genitals and cast them into the sea. The goddess rose from the water near Cyprus. It was a vivid etymology, and the Greeks believed it. But modern linguists are skeptical. The derivation of Aphrodite from aphros requires irregular morphology that doesn't follow standard Greek word-formation patterns. The name looks Greek on the surface, but its bones are foreign.

The leading alternative traces Aphrodite to the Semitic goddess Astarte, herself descended from the Mesopotamian Ishtar. The Phoenicians, who traded extensively with Cyprus and the Aegean from around 1000 BCE, brought Astarte's worship westward. The Greeks may have received the goddess and then folk-etymologized her name to sound Greek — connecting it to aphros after the fact. If this theory is correct, Aphrodite is a Phoenician loan-goddess wearing a Greek pronunciation.

From her name came aphrodisiakos in Greek, meaning 'pertaining to Aphrodite' — specifically to sexual desire. The word entered English as aphrodisiac by the early 18th century. It is one of the few English words derived directly from a deity's name that remains in common daily use. Oysters, chocolate, and champagne have all been called aphrodisiacs. The goddess's name became a pharmacological category.

The statue known as the Venus de Milo, carved around 100 BCE and now in the Louvre, actually depicts Aphrodite — Venus being her Roman name. When the sculpture was discovered on the island of Melos in 1820, French diplomats nearly started an international incident securing it. A Semitic goddess, renamed by Greeks, re-renamed by Romans, carved by an unknown sculptor, and fought over by French bureaucrats. Her name crossed more borders than most empires.