Rule #1: Baby Name Dos and Don'ts

So with this whole list of awesome mix and match components, Greek parents could never possibly run out of of perfectly innocuous baby names, right?  Protesistratos, foremost in battle!  Arkhogenes, born to be in command!  Iphinous, the noble-minded!

... right?

Yyyeah, so it never quite worked out that way.

Now, kids today are unlucky enough if they get saddled with a name it's easy to make fun of; in Greek mythology, children tended to grow into their names, so you really wanted to tread carefully when thumbing through the baby name books.

Don't pull a Thetis and name your child Achilles (the peoples' grief) unless you don't mind being drawn from your home at the bottom of the sea to deal with all the mad dramz he's starting with his friends.  Don't be like Laertes and call your son Odysseus (the hateful one) unless you really want him to have a bad attitude.  And what was Agave thinking, naming her son Pentheus (the sorrowful one)?  I'm sure he ended up plenty sorrowful while his own mother was tearing off his head in the throes of Dionysus' madness.

Also, stay away from sound-alikes.  If you name your kid something that sounds almost like 'alas!' it's just begging the fates to spin their way toward making that name oh so dramatically ironic.  I'm looking at you, Mr. Aias 'Aiai!' Telamonides.

And honestly, maybe three out of four children named Hippolytus won't die being torn apart by horses, but...  is that a chance you really want to take?