Entry № 4580 · Greek origin

Io Io — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ EYE-oh /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Greek
Meaning
"Greek princess turned into a heifer (Zeus's lover)"
Syllables
1
First recorded
Ancient (Greek)

A name that means "greek princess turned into a heifer (zeus's lover)".

Io (Ἰώ) is of obscure etymology — possibly Egyptian. Argive priestess of Hera, lover of Zeus, turned into a white heifer to escape Hera's jealousy — pursued by a gadfly across continents until she reached Egypt, where she was restored to human form and became, according to Greek tradition, the mythological ancestress of the Egyptian goddess Isis. The third-largest moon of Jupiter and the most volcanically active body in the solar system is named for her.

Featured in Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound and Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Greek princess. Turned into a heifer by Zeus to hide from Hera; ancestress of the kings of Argos.

The name in its native script.

Ἰώ
Transliteration
Iṓ
Pronunciation
/ ˈaɪ.oʊ /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Io stands.

Io does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Ios before her.

Real people
Io
Greek mythological princess; Jupiter moon.
In fiction
Io
Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound.

Names connected to Io.

The number behind Io.

6

The Nurturer

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Io reduce to 6, The Nurturer. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.