Gryphon

What Does the Name Gryphon Mean?

Gryphon is an English spelling of the name of the mythical beast commonly called a griffin, and that creature - eagle above, lion below - is the name's established sense. The word is not native English: it came in by way of Old French griffon, which descends from Latin gryphus, which in turn transliterates Greek gryps (γρύψ). The y in Gryphon stands for the Greek upsilon, a learned touch that has kept this spelling in use alongside griffin and griffon.

The earlier history of the Greek word is not settled. The explanation most often repeated connects it with grypos (γρυπός), "hooked, curved," apparently describing the hooked beak of the eagle half, so that the word's literal sense would be something like "the hooked one." Another line of argument looks for an older Near Eastern term for a winged guardian creature behind the Greek, though this has not been demonstrated. Because no single derivation is accepted, the etymological meaning of Gryphon is best called uncertain, even though the creature it names is clear.

Gryphon Name History & Origins

The word reached English through medieval French: Latin gryphus became Old French griffon, and Middle English took it up in forms such as griffon and griffin. The spelling gryphon, with its Greek-style y, is a scholarly variant that has circulated in English for centuries alongside the others. It is the form most readers meet in the Gryphon of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), a talkative character drawn from the older tradition rather than a new coinage.

The creature itself is far older than any of these spellings. Greek and Near Eastern art of the first millennium BC shows eagle-lion hybrids, and Greek writers placed griffins in the far north, guarding gold in Scythian territory. Medieval bestiaries and European heraldry kept the figure alive, and the gryphon became a common charge in coats of arms, usually standing for a guardian that joins the strength of the lion to the speed of the eagle. That heraldic and literary life, rather than a religious tradition, is what carried the word into modern English.

As a first name, Gryphon is much less common than Griffin and is generally treated as a spelling variation of it. The English given name Griffin has two separate roots, and they should not be merged. One is the creature word described above, used as a name in the same way other heraldic beasts have been. The other is Welsh: Griffin is an anglicized form of Gruffudd (also spelled Gruffydd), a native Welsh personal name with its own separate etymology, borne by several medieval princes of Gwynedd. The spelling Gryphon points to the creature word, not to the Welsh name.