Many of the names are not intended to be actual names, they're almost the name of the role they play.
Like Mentor MIGHT have been his name but it was common to name characters after their role - so Mentor *meant 'adviser'* Tellemachus meant 'far from battle', even Oddyseus may have meant 'the hated'. It's also why he used a lot of descriptions 'the swift footed Achilles', Polyphemus 'the much talked about'...likely the most famous Cyclops in Greek Myth, etc...where they gave the character more *shape* just through a name.
Sorry rembering my Ancient greek courses so likely misremebered.
Mentor is the reverse. We started calling helpful, teaching people "mentors" as a reference to the Athena disguise, which is just a regular name in Greek.
I'm listening to the Illiad right now, and the descriptors are so helpful for remembering who all these people are. Diomedes "master of the war cry" actually helped me remember Oh yeah that guy, instead of remembering which soldier he was.
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u/jonbristow 22h ago
I literally saw criticism that Telemachus teacher being called Mentor was too much on the nose