Callie

Callie ~ Beautiful, Lovely ~ Greek

portrait by Mary Lemon Waller

I have never known a Callie, so my personal experience with the name is limited to a porcelain doll I had when I was a kid. Callie had shiny ringlets of chestnut hair, and she was dressed in highly fashionable period clothes from the Victorian era (apparently she was from a wealthy porcelain-doll family).

Childhood memories aside, Callie is a great name. It has some old-fashioned charm, being that it was at the height of its popularity in the late 1800s, but also fits in with today's trends. The most recent information ranks the name at 186 (for 2014). Callie happens to be the name of a Grey's Anatomy character, so I'm sure that's created more awareness of the name.

Origin
Callie has a couple of different possible origins. Some claim it comes from Calliope, and some say it's derived from Calista. It's hard to judge since Callie is a fitting nick-name for both. Here are some details on the history of those names.

In Greek mythology, Calliope was Zeus' daughter and the muse of epic poetry. She is credited for inspiring Homer to write the Iliad and the Odyssey. Calliope is also the name of a hummingbird species.

Callista is a moon of Jupiter, something I vaguely remembered from an astronomy class I took. Its Greek origins stem from a myth where Zeus falls in love with a huntress named Callisto. The name has since been altered with an -a suffix to mark its femininity. Of course, we all can think of a famous Calista: Ms. Flockhart, known for playing Ally McBeal.