[name]Hi[/name] everyone!
I’ve been thinking lately that I would love to name a little girl after one of my favorite smelling flowers, Heliotrope. But, Heliotrope itself I think is just too much for a name. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for names derived from Heliotrope?
Thanks!
Well, going down the purple root you have [name]Violet[/name] and [name]Lilac[/name], and [name]Lavender[/name] for the daring.
The name comes from ‘helios’, Greek for sun - which is itself a mythological name. Going down this route you have a lot of options for boys: [name]Elio[/name] is a modern-day derivative (EE-lee-oh) and other [name]Sun[/name]-related names are [name]Apollo[/name] (also from Greek mythology) and [name]Samson[/name] (Hebrew). [name]Sol[/name] could also be a name, especially as a nickname for [name]Solomon[/name].
Or you could go with a sound-alike, to evoke the heliotrope - [name]Helen/name or [name]Heloise[/name] perhaps, or [name]Leo[/name] (boy - just [name]Leo[/name], [name]Leopold[/name], [name]Leonard[/name] etc. - or girl - [name]Leonora[/name]).
For what it’s worth, an eccentric but beautiful flower choice would make a perfect middle name, in my opinion 
[name]Auburn[/name]
Heliotropes are beautiful! One of my favorites as well. You could go with [name]Helios[/name], which is the name of the Greek sun God and the personification of the sun in Greek mythology. It’s technically a male name, as [name]Helios[/name], in mythology, was male, but it could work for a little girl.
I know that it’s not a heliotrope, but you could go “[name]Soleil[/name]” for the sun aspect from helio, and “fleur” for the flower - I know that that’s ‘sunflower’, but I think it’s super cute and kind of fits. I am not sure if I would use this combo (I’m not in any way French and I think my family would mispronounce it), but would love to see it used by someone else.
Good luck!
I think that “vivid lavender” is another name for the color purple of heliotrope flower. So you could use [name]Lavender[/name] for your daughter.
The latin name of the garden heliotrope is Heliotropium arborescens – so what about [name]Arbor[/name]? An offbeat girls name to be sure but could work.
One variety of the garden heliotrope is called [name]Princess[/name] [name]Marina[/name] – [name]Marina[/name] could be lovely.
Heliotrope is also the name of a gemstone, which is also known as blood stone. It is a deep green chalcedony quartz with fleck of red from iron oxide. I know a woman who named her daughter Chalcedony, she goes by Chalcy. I thought this was a great name!
There’s a chapter in [name]Finnegan[/name]'s Wake where heliotrope is an answer to a riddle, and there are several references and clues about it in the book. I don’t have my copy at the moment but I’ll try to look this up later on and give some of the different examples [name]Joyce[/name] uses.
I agree with [name]Auburn[/name]. So often these days, middle names
end up just as fillers. Why not use Heliotrope as a middle? Then you don’t have to change it.