Odessa

Odessa, Texas.

Odessa is the sister of Sofia in the book The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

Odessa is a major city in Ukraine.

I first heard this name while watching "The Long Walk Home" with Whoopi Goldberg and Sissy Spacek. Whoppi plays Odessa Cotter, who is a very strong and admirable character, and Sissy plays Miriam, Odessa's boss who gives her rides to work during the Montgomery bus boycott--and thus becomes involved in civil rights. Needless to say, it was a very powerful movie.

---

For me, "Odessa" reminded me of "Odysseus" (which it's connected to on this site), which further reminded me of the word "odyssey," which means journey. I think that naming a child anything to do with a "journey" is wonderful, since what else can it allude to but the journey that is Life? I think *Odessa Miriam* is an absolutely beautiful, powerful name with a great amount of substance (without being pompous).

In the computer game Half-Life 2, "Colonel" Odessa Cubbage is a cowardly Englishman who aids the player during one section of the game. He is the commander of a rebel hideout called New Little Odessa.

It's a city in Ukraine, too. Mark Twain said he was very fond of this city when he visited it in The Innocents Abroad.

In Florida there is a city named Odessa.

Odessa Chen is the female singer in the little-known band Thee More Shallows(she has a beautiful voice).

Odessa was the name of a great wolf in Patrick Carman's "The Land of Elyon" series.

Little Odessa is a film from 1994 starring Tim Roth and Edward Furlong.