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(Born Wednesday 14 May 2014 at 5:23 AM, 3.3 kg 53 cm)

Marvellous.  Emily, my eldest daughter, has given birth to my first natural Grandchild (I have three step-grandchildren).  She and Guido have named him Leander.  Mother and child are well.

According to Wikipedia, the original most famous Leander is the central character the the Greek Myth of Hero and Leander.

In the myth, Leander (Ancient Greek: Λέανδρος, Léandros), a young man from Abydos on the Asian side of the Dardanelles fell in love with Hero a priestess of Aphrodite (Roman equivalent: Venus the goddess of love) who dwelt in a tower in Sestos on the European side of the Hellespont. 

His soft words, and his argument that Aphrodite would scorn the worship of a virgin, persuaded the beautiful Hero to take Leander as her lover. Every night he would swim across the Hellespont to be with her. Hero would light a lamp at the top of her tower to guide his way. These trysts lasted through the warm summer.

On Hellespont, guilty of true love's blood,
In view and opposite two cities stood,
Sea-borderers, disjoin'd by Neptune's might:
The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight.
At Sestos Hero dwelt; Hero the fair,
Whom young Apollo courted for her hair.

from Christopher Marlowe's poem Hero and Leander

But one stormy winter night, the waves tossed Leander in the sea and the breezes blew out Hero's light.  Leander lost his way and was drowned. When Hero saw his dead body, she threw herself over the edge of the tower to her death to be with him.

The Last Watch of Hero by Frederic Leighton,
depicting Hero anxiously waiting for Leander during the storm.

According to Wikipedia, people named Leander include:

• Leander of Seville (c. 534-600 or 601), Catholic saint and bishop who converted the son of the Visigothic king from Arianism

• Leander Clark (1823-1910), American businessman, politician and Union Army officer during the American Civil War

• Leander Czerny (1859-1944), Czech entomologist

• Leander Ditscheiner (1839–1905), Austrian physicist and mathematician

• Leander Haußmann (born 1959), German theatre and film director

• Leander Starr Jameson (1853-1917), British colonial statesman best known for the Jameson Raid on the Transvaal Republic in Africa

• Leander Kahney (born 1965), American journalist and author

• Leander J. McCormick 1819–1900), American inventor, manufacturer, philanthropist and businessman

• L. Hamilton McCormick (1859–1934), American author, inventor, art collector and sculptor, son of the above

• Leander Richardson (1856-1918), American journalist, playwright and theatrical writer

• Leander Watts, author of young adult literature

A number of warships and warship classes of the Royal Navy have been given this famous name:

• HMS Leander, various Royal Navy ships

  • Leander class, three ship classes

   

• HMNZS Leander, a Royal New Zealand Navy light cruiser of World War II, originally HMS Leander of the British Royal Navy

• SS Leander, a number of ships with this name

• Leander (clipper), a clipper built in 1867

I like the Myth of Hero and Leander.

When we were in Turkey in 2005 we crossed the Hellespont twice in a rented car. It didn't float on water but there was a convenient ferry. We were there principally to visit the battle site at Gallipoli but the whole region is interesting.  The Hellespont (Dardanelles) has been famous in history, myth and religion since the invention of writing; and maybe earlier.  The ancient city of Troy was nearby.

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