Melissa is a given name for a female child. The name comes from the Greek word μέλισσα (melissa), "honey bee", which in turn comes from μέλι (meli), "honey". In Hittite melit signifies "honey". Thus the name is the approximate Greek equivalent for the Hebrew name Deborah (דְּבוֹרָה), meaning bee.
Melissa also refers to the plant Melissa officinalis (Lamiaceae family), known as lemon balm.
Melisa is a common variant form, with others being Malissa, Melesa, Melessa, Meliza, Mellisa, Melosa, and Molissa.
In Ireland it is sometimes used as a feminine form of the Gaelic male name Maoilíosa, which means "servant of Jesus".
According to Greek mythology, perhaps reflecting Minoan culture, making her the daughter of a Cretan king Melissos, whose -issos ending is pre-Greek, Melissa was a nymph who discovered and taught the use of honey and from whom bees were believed to have received their name. She was one of the nymph nurses of Zeus, sister to Amaltheia, but rather than feeding the baby milk, Melissa, appropriately for her name, fed him honey. Or, alternatively, the bees brought honey straight to his mouth. Because of her, Melissa became the name of all the nymphs who cared for the patriarch god as a baby.
Melissa is a comune in the province of Crotone, in Calabria. The village Melissa is situated in the mountainous inland, while the frazione of Torre Melissa is on the Ionian Sea coast. The Melissa DOC is a Calabrian wine region.
Melissa is mentioned for the first time in 13th century documents. It was a fief of the de Micheli family (1463–66), Venitian nobles based in Calabria, of the Campitelli family (1485–1688) and, later, to the Pignatelli (1688–1806).
In 1949 it was the location of a massacre, when the police shot against the population, killing three people.
The Kasakela chimpanzee community is a habituated community of wild eastern chimpanzees that lives in Gombe National Park near Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania. The community was the subject of Dr Jane Goodall's pioneering study that began in 1960, and studies have continued ever since. As a result, the community has been instrumental in the study of chimpanzees, and has been popularized in several books and documentaries. The community's popularity was enhanced by Dr Goodall's practice of giving names to the chimpanzees she was observing, in contrast to the typical scientific practice of identifying the subjects by number. Dr Goodall generally used a naming convention in which infants were given names starting with the same letter as their mother, allowing the recognition of matrilineal lines.
"Warum" (German: Why), was the name of the fourth single of German pop/rock group Juli. It was the fourth release from their album, Es ist Juli (German: It is July). This single was their first single not to feature a promotional video. 'Warum' could be interpreted as the question of why?, and in this case there's no answer.