Recently (very recently) I changed my stage name to be simply Romina. When I first began acting I went by this name, but after much insecurity and judgement from others I changed my name about 3 times and ended up with Romina Espinosa. Now, I have decided to go back to just Romina. As a result of this I received a most interesting email that explains the origin of my name. It was such an entertaining letter to read that I decided I wanted to post it here and share it with all of you! It’s a bit lengthy, but I promise it’s worth your time.

Here it goes:

Hi!

As I noticed your new abbreviated name, I poked around some trivia, as I like to do, and turned up this:

You were named after Rome. I’m sure you already knew this, but I didn’t (D’oh!), so I researched it.

Maybe you know this stuff, but I haven’t written to you in a while so I’m also keeping in touch. Two things in one. Smart, huh?

This gets a tad complicated, but here we go:

According to Greek mythology, “Chaos” was the name of the formless void state that existed forever before the creation of the universe. After a few trillion millennia this got to be pretty boring, so at some point the universe emerged, and also a few gods, among them Uranus, god of the sky; Gaia, goddess of the earth; Nyx, goddess of the night; Erebus, god of darkness; and some others, depending on whose version of the story you read. Back in the old Greek days those toga philosopher dudes were always getting these stories screwed up, so we have a million different versions. One version says Gaia was Uranus’ mother.

Regardless of whether Uranus and Gaia were fellow primal Greek gods or mother/son, they soon got together and had a son, Iapetus, god of moral life; another son, Oceanus, god of the ocean; a daughter, Tethys, goddess of the ocean (yeah, they double-covered the ocean); and who knows how many other kids.

Iapetus got together with Clymene, a Greek Oceanid nymph god who was Oceanus’ daughter, therefore Iapetus’ niece (dude got himself a nymph-niece! nice! he must have been like Hugh Hefner or something).

There weren’t a whole lot of folks to get together with in those days, so according to the Greeks and Romans, we got off to an incestuous start. But they were gods, and Iapetus was god of moral life, so it was ok. I think the whole incest thing fell out of favor when all the European royalty ended up having so many kids with bizarre birth defects. But, then again, the queens and princesses all had affairs with the hot guards – oh well, who knows.

Clymene’s mother was Tethys, who, remember, was Oceanus’ and Iapetus’ sister. Still with me? By the way, Oceanus and Tethys had three thousand daughters. They also had three thousand sons.

Iapetus and Clymene had a son named Altas, god of the heavens.

You know, I wonder if those gods in those days named their kids “Atlas, god of the heavens,” or if the titles came later.

Atlas got together with Pleione, another nymph who was one of his six thousand cousins, and they had a daughter named Maia, who along with her mother, Pleione, was also a Pleiadic Oceanic nymph. Now fortunately the Roman god that corresponds with the Greek god is also named Maia, so that makes this a whole lot simpler as we cross into the Roman gods. Right? No? I’m not even going to get into the Mycenaean or Etruscan or Sumerian or Vedic gods, not to mention all the other lineages. Actually, the Roman Maia might be the daughter of Vulcan, but the paperwork seems to have been misplaced, so we don’t have to get into that and Vulcan’s genealogy.

Incidentally, Pleione was the mother of the Pleiades, who were, I think, the first female pop group.

Now, along comes Jupiter, the Roman king of the gods. Jupiter was the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Zeus, but, I’m sure just to keep us confused, their origins are different. Zeus was the son of Cronos and Rhea. Cronos and Rhea were both children of Uranus and Gaia, so therefore, brother and sister (Cronos & Rhea, Uranus & Gaia – hey, that rhymes!). Jupiter, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have a mother or father, which should make this email a whole lot shorter and save me the possibility of going insane.

Jupiter gets together with Maia and they have a son called Mercury (not Freddie), a Roman god of trade (Freddie was an India-born British god of singing). Coincidently, Mercury was also a messenger, which made running all over the place for all that trading a lot easier.

Mercury meets Carmenta, a Roman goddess of childbirth and prophecy. Her name when she was born was Nicostrate, but it was changed because she was good at giving great magic spells. “Carmen” is the Latin word for magic spell, and hence what everybody should name their daughters, and the root of the word “charm.” There is a women’s holiday named after her called Carmentalia, which is celebrated on two separate days: January 11 and January 15. We could just split the difference and celebrate it on January 13, which, of course, is another great holiday that we all know. Carmenta had three sisters, the four of them were all nymphs, but I don’t know if they were also sisters of the same nymphs that were daughters of Oceanus and Tethys. Later, the Vestal Virgins would draw water for their various activities from the spring outside the Porta Capena which was dedicated to Egeria, one of Carmenta’s sisters.

But HOLY CRAP DO I EVER DIGRESS.

So Mercury and Carmenta had a son named Evander.

Evander was not a god of a specific thing, all the specific things being handed out by then, but he became a Roman cultural hero when he brought the Greek laws, culture, baklava, partying, pizza & beer, hoodies, iPhones (they were made of stone and weighed 160 pounds back then), and various other neat things to Italy. Things were going so well he decided to found a city of his own, like all the cool gods did. He called his town “Pallantium” and put it on the middle hill of seven hills which were next to the Tiber river. While he was at it, being the party animal he was, he took an ancient holiday called Februa (which was held in … wait for it … February! On Feb 15, to be exact) and reworked it into a new holiday called Lupercalia, which was celebrated on three days, Feb 13 through Feb 15. Everybody ran around naked and hit each other with fur whips. The aristocratic women used to purposely run out into the street so they wouldn’t miss out on the fun.

Those Romans did like their festivals.

Evander named Lupercalia after Lupercus, a minor Roman god of shepherds – which via etymology led to various animals including Lupa, the wolf who rescued and took care of the twins Romulus and Remus after they were cast into the Tiber by Amulius after Amulius defeated his brother Numitor, Numitor being the twins’ grandfather. Go way back many generations in the genealogy of Romulus, Remus, Amulius, and Numitor, and you will find Venus. Everybody argues as to who Venus’s parents were, but her Greek counterpart, Aphrodite, has a very interesting birth. Aphrodite was born when Cronus got mad at his dad, Uranus, and cut off dad’s nuts and threw them into the sea. The foam that resulted gave rise to Aphrodite. Those Greeks were clever, weren’t they?

Oh, and by the way, Venus (Love) and Mars (War) had a son named Cupid (who tricks people into falling in love) (Greek counterpart – Eros). So that’s why being in love with somebody is like war sometimes. Half and half, you know. Cupid might actually be the son of Venus and Jupiter. Everybody was screwing everybody else in those days, and they didn’t have DNA testing at the time…

The twins Romulus and Remus were only half gods, because their mother, Rhea Silvia (who was human and the daughter of Amulius), was raped by that nasty old bastard Mars. So Cupid is the half-brother of Romulus and Remus, as well as some great-great-great-great-etc-uncle of Romulus and Remus through Venus.

Evander’s new city of Pallantium flourished, grew, and absorbed some other nearby small towns. It was a very popular place. Sort of like Las Vegas, but they didn’t know how to make neon lights yet. Only neon candles.

Romulus and Remus were found with the wolf, Lupa, by a shepherd (which somehow ties in with Evander’s holiday Lupercalia), and were taken by the shepherd and raised by him. Some say Lupa was really just the shepherd’s wife, she just seemed like a she-wolf. Totally understandable. Being the half-gods they were, they grew up to be natural leaders. They eventually decided to found their own city. They decided to use a completely logical method to choose the location of their new city: The first guy to see six vultures gets to choose the site. Romulus claims he saw his six first. Remus says, no, he saw his six first. Romulus chose his site, right on Pallatine Hill, which was right in the middle of Pallantium. No problem, he just took over everything and made it his own. I guess Evander had since moved off to god retirement, since he wasn’t there to object. Romulus dug a sort of ditch or moat to keep Remus out. Now there are a couple of stories, one says that they both wanted to be king, and couldn’t decide by civilized means how to determine who got the throne, so Romulus just killed Remus. Another story says Remus crossed over the ditch/moat, which made Romulus mad, so Romulus killed him.

Either way, Romulus named the new city “Roma” after himself.

Now the whole story is about 18 zillion times more complicated, but I wanted this email to be shorter than the combined works of the Library of Congress.

And, finally, to get to your part in this: “Romina” is Latin for “female from Roma” (the Latin for ‘male from Roma’ is ‘Roman’). Roma, Rome, which came from Romulus, and Pallantium, and Evander, and all the rest of the story. I can’t really say they all lived happily ever after, though.

So you were not named after a tomato. But I wouldn’t say you’re not a tomato.

———

So how YOU doin’?

- Tim

Thank you Tim Rasmussen for writing to me and telling me this delightful story and for letting me share it on my blog! ^_^