Agnes is from the Greek hagnē ("pure, chaste"), conflated with the Latin agnus (lamb) — hence the iconography of Saint Agnes always shown with a lamb. **Saint Agnes of Rome (c. 291-304)** — **early Christian martyr, killed at age 12 or 13 for refusing to marry the son of a Roman prefect** during the Diocletian persecution; one of the seven women named in the Roman Canon of the Mass alongside Mary. **Patron saint of girls, chastity, gardeners, and engaged couples**. **Agnes Martin (1912-2004)** — Canadian-American abstract painter; major Minimalist. **Agnes Varda (1928-2019)** — Belgian-French filmmaker; "Grandmother of the French New Wave."
Subject of Keats's *The Eve of St. Agnes* (1819) and Agnès Varda's documentary *The Gleaners and I* (2000).
Agnes reduces to four — the number of pure lamb.