I’ve liked [name]Ismene[/name] for a long time, but I think that the [name]Oedipus[/name] connection is a pretty unfortunate piece of baggage that makes the name a lot less realistically usable. It’s a shame, because I think it has an appealing, accessible sound and a great meaning - “knowledge.”
Lately I’ve seen the Ismini spelling, which appears to be the modern Greek spelling. If you put that spelling into Google a lot of different young Greek women come up, so that name seems to be at least not uncommon there despite the [name]Oedipus[/name] baggage. Ismini also has the added bonus of making the pronunciation a lot more intuitive for English speakers who haven’t encountered the name before. Still, whenever I see the name brought up on message boards I mostly see the [name]Ismene[/name] spelling.
Which spelling do you prefer - [name]Ismene[/name] or Ismini? And do you think that the Ismini spelling could remove the name from [name]Oedipus[/name] a bit more and make it a bit more wearable?