The Greek word used is πολύτροπον, literally the man of many turns, and other translators have suggested alternate English translations, including 'man of twists and turns' (Fagles 1996) and 'a complicated man' (Wilson 2018). In the Iliad and Odyssey Homer uses several epithets used to describe Odysseus, starting with the opening, where he is described as 'the man of many devices' (in the 1919 Murray translation). In Etruscan religion the name (and stories) of Odysseus were adopted under the name Uthuze ( Uθuze), which has been interpreted as a parallel borrowing from a preceding Minoan form of the name (possibly *Oduze, pronounced /'ot͡θut͡se/) this theory is supposed to explain also the insecurity of the phonologies ( d or l), since the affricate /t͡θ/, unknown to the Greek of that time, gave rise to different counterparts (i. e. It has also been suggested that the name is of non-Greek origin, possibly not even Indo-European, with an unknown etymology. Odysseus often receives the patronymic epithet Laertiades ( Λαερτιάδης), 'son of Laërtes'. Euryclea seems to suggest a name like Polyaretos, 'for he has much been prayed for' (πολυάρητος) but Autolycus 'apparently in a sardonic mood' decided to give the child another name commemorative of 'his own experience in life': 'Since I have been angered (ὀδυσσάμενος odyssamenos) with many, both men and women, let the name of the child be Odysseus'. In Book 19 of the Odyssey, where Odysseus' early childhood is recounted, Euryclea asks the boy's grandfather Autolycus to name him. Homer relates it to various forms of this verb in references and puns.

Ancient authors linked the name to the Greek verbs odussomai ( ὀδύσσομαι) “to be wroth against, to hate”, to oduromai ( ὀδύρομαι) “to lament, bewail”, or even to ollumi ( ὄλλυμι) “to perish, to be lost”. Some have supposed that 'there may originally have been two separate figures, one called something like Odysseus, the other something like Ulixes, who were combined into one complex personality.' However, the change between d and l is common also in some Indo-European and Greek names, and the Latin form is supposed to be derived from the Etruscan Uthuze (see below), which perhaps accounts for some of the phonetic innovations. In Latin, he was known as Ulixēs or (considered less correct) Ulyssēs. The form Oulixēs ( Οὐλίξης) is attested in an early source in Magna Graecia ( Ibycus, according to Diomedes Grammaticus), while the Greek grammarian Aelius Herodianus has Oulixeus ( Οὐλιξεύς). The form Ὀδυσ(σ)εύς Odys(s)eus is used starting in the epic period and through the classical period, but various other forms are also found. 5.3 'Cruel, deceitful Ulixes' of the Romans.Head of Odysseus from a Roman period Hellenistic marble group representing Odysseus blinding Polyphemus, found at the villa of Tiberius at Sperlonga, Italy

Kingdom of the dead odysseus