Can I name a male character Artemis?
So I'm writing a story and there is a character that is a male that I want to name Artemis. The reason, simply put, is that he has a sister with a name I really like that is TECHNICALLY a boy's name (the nickname however is sweet sounding and was the reason I chose the full name).
I wanted to go for a 'OMG, your brother has a girl's name and you have a boy's name' but I'm worried about using it because it isn't a common boy's name at all. In fact the only male called Artemis I've ever heard of is Artemis Fowl (Who is nothing like my character other than the fact that they'd have the same first name).
Is it alright for me to use it?
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2 answers
Yes, you can use Artemis; it is from Greek mythology and impossible to copyright as a name. The Greek for the male versions of this name are Artemas and Artemus, both are listed in The Character Naming Sourcebook (and mean "gift of Artemis"). You violate nothing by using a name already in the public domain.
I would avoid using the full name of a fictional character; Don't call a character "Clark Kent" or "Bruce Wayne" or "Harry Potter". The copyright owners of those characters might be able to claim damages if the name of your character helps you succeed commercially. But that is a combination: One cannot copyright "Clark", "Bruce", or "Harry", and cannot copyright the surnames "Kent", "Wayne", or "Potter", none of them are original combinations of letters used as names.
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I don't know of Artemis in ancient greek being used as a male name, but, for what it's worth, in modern greek Άρτεμις is the female name (same name as the godess) but there exists a male version too, which is Αρτέμης. Note the accents: in the female version, the stress is on the initial A, whereas in the male version it's the second vowel, the e, that is stressed*. The different spelling of the last vowel is just historical spelling with no impact on pronunciation. (transliterating: Α->A, ρ->r, τ->t, ε->e, μ->m, ι->i, η->i, ς->s)
My impression is that, while the female version of the name is the more popular of the two, the male version isn't too rare, either.
*Modern greek does not have short and long vowels--they are all short. But each word has one syllable that is stressed, i.e. louder than the others (of course, the cadence of sentences complicates how words sound in natural speech, but that's the basic theory anyway.)
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