Derived from Greek Elysion, the mythic realm of the blessed, it evokes an ideal, blissful place.
Elysian descends from one of the most beautiful concepts in ancient Greek mythology: the Elysian Fields (Ἠλύσια πεδία, *Ēlýsia pedía*), the paradise reserved in the afterlife for the heroic, the virtuous, and the beloved of the gods. In Homer's *Odyssey*, the prophet Proteus foretells that Menelaus will be carried to Elysium rather than dying — an honor beyond death. In Virgil's *Aeneid*, Aeneas journeys through Elysium and finds the souls of the blessed living in perpetual spring, in fields of light.
The concept shaped Western ideas of paradise for two millennia. As an adjective, "elysian" entered the English language in the sixteenth century to mean anything blissful, divinely beautiful, or heavenly. It has been a poet's word ever since: Keats wrote of "elysian quiet," Shelley invoked "elysian winds," and the Elysée Palace in Paris — the residence of the French president — takes its name from the same root.
In music, Beethoven's *Ode to Joy* (based on Schiller's poem) famously sings of the "Elysian" realm. The word carries the weight of thousands of years of human longing for beauty and transcendence. As a given name, Elysian is rare and audacious — more commonly seen as an adjective than worn by a person — which gives it an almost radical freshness.
It belongs to a growing tradition of naming children after states of being and mythological concepts: Orion, Lyric, Zephyr, Solstice. A child named Elysian is named for the best place humans have ever imagined. The expectations are delightfully impossible.