Last weekend I went to a party at our neighbors’ house. Billed as A BBQ in the ‘burbs; the gimmick was to invite all their hip city friends out to the boondocks to enjoy a spacious backyard and fifty year-old trees. They offered great music, a keg of beer and a guest list that included young artists, professors, ad writers, techies and new moms fresh home from fabulous careers. I popped in and out throughout the night, chatting with a few people who approached me. I am shy at parties and at a party of strangers I will putter nervously, rearranging the potluck dishes, lining up condiments, filling far more paper cups than people.

I was positioning a pile of napkins in perfect fan formation when a guy walked up and assuming I was a caterer, asked me for a soda. I found him a can from the kitchen and he asked me my name.

“Pandora”

“Pandora. Like the website?”

“Uh . . . yeah, I guess.”

I was a little taken aback. This was the first time someone had referenced my name directly to the music genome project. I am accustomed to varied reactions, just not this one. His age, his cultural connectedness, something seemed to have shifted in the mnemonic universe. What I had expected was a witty retort about boxes:

“Pandora. Like the box?”

“Do you have a box?” (Yes, this is usually delivered with a leer and a wink)

“Hey, don’t get near me. You were the one that opened that box!”

I have spent twenty years working in sales, waiting for people to look from my name tag to the gift I am boxing for them and then comment with word for word predictability: “Pandora is boxing my stuff, oh no, what will happen when we open it? You aren’t packing anything bad in there, are you?” Each time I must respond as if this was the most clever and original line I have ever heard. Once I accidently dropped my nametag in a gift box that was sealed and opened later at a bridal shower. The recipient returned it as if compelled; spooked at finding my name in her mixing bowls.

I have been told that I share my name with numerous cats, “you must be a curious person, too!” I am asked if I am Greek (which, in spite of a nagging resemblance to Nia Vardalos, I am not). I get incredulous looks as people ask skeptically, “Is Pandora your real name?” Well, no, but Daisy Stardust Leafshine was already taken. There was a sweater brand when I was a kid, a jewelry company today and most phone books or google searches include at least one massage/ escort service named “Pandora’s treasures” or other equally scintillating combinations.

Some just say, “Cool name.” Or mispronounce it: “Pam Dora,” “Cinderella,” “Penelope,” “Primavera” or “Pandora, now what is your first name please?”

A least the box and cat people are repeating a cultural echo in their western heritage. They know there is a myth, they can recall a few key words – box, open, bad, hope – and sense that the name has a certain Jezabel-vibe but they are not clear on much else.

I researched the story of Pandora almost as soon as I learned to read and my inevitable attraction led me to several college level classes on mythology. Pandora was an attribution myth, an answer to the question, “how did evil come into the world?” She was a punishment; a plot by Zeus, king of the Olympians, hatched in a long-standing feud with his stepsiblings, the Titans. It started when a Titan named Prometheus created human creatures called man.  Prometheus was sympathetic as his creations shivered in the cold and dark so he stole an ember of the Olympic fire to comfort them. Zeus, angry at his audacity, chained Prometheus to a mountain and ordered an eagle to eat the Titan’s immortal liver daily for eternity. Zeus’ revenge on man was more meticulous. He asked Hephaestus to cast a female mortal and invited all twelve Olympians to give her some quality that reflected their own glory – beauty, handicraft, music, adornments. Zeus went last. He gave Pandora (meaning “all gifts” or “all giving”) a jar (not a box) along a warning not to open it, sabotaging the instructions by also planting the seed of curiosity. Although Prometheus had cautioned man never to accept gifts from the Olympian gods, Pandora was irresistible and one of the human males married her willingly. In time she opened the jar and released a rigged torrent of pestilence, pain and suffering. She quickly slammed the lid back on, trapping hope. The meaning of this last bit is controversial. Is hope imprisoned or saved? Is hope, or expectation, an optimistic force or a pessimistic curse? It all depends on the translation.

What is not debated is that, like most Hellenic myths in the patriarchal tradition, the story of Pandora is misogynistic. She is more Lilith than Eve, not a helpmeet but a mistake, retribution so virulant that it necessitated a flood to cleanse the world of the contents of Pandora’s jar. She is powerful in her allure but powerless in resisting temptation. A typical weak woman in Greek lore. Overall, not a great name for your daughter.

Which was why, as a child, I comforted myself with the knowledge that my high school dropout father and my give-me-a-softball-before-a-book mother were not aware of the ancient Pandora. They named me after a movie, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. My father would say, “In the movie, Pandora was very beautiful and such a lady. I wanted my daughter to be a lady just like her.” He had married a woman with exotic Sophia Loren coloring, so the story felt romantic and more positive than the stupid woman who could not keep her mind off a jar of evil.

Then several years ago they released the movie, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, on DVD. I was finally able to watch my true namesake. I was rather chagrinned to learn that the celluloid Pandora isn’t much of a lady. Her character is actually a narcissistic siren unable to love her many suitors, driving them to depression and suicide. She finally falls in love with a ghost, cursed for killing his wife, condemned to sail the oceans until he can find a woman to die for him. Pandora willingly sacrifices herself to save him from his dead but undead fate and they both die in the end. The film induces a gloom not unlike opening a jar of evil. I am not sure what either of my parents were thinking. I still tell questioners that I was named after the film, but only reluctantly, neither Pandora is much of a role model.

I often wonder how this unusual and vaguely sinister name has influenced my life. I went as “Pandy” until college when I felt I could shoulder my name in full. As a child, I had plenty of other self defining differences which others could choose to mock or admire. My name was just another bullet point. As an adult, it is probably more of an asset. People remember my name and, in spite of potential associations, the lack of classical education in this country is in my favor. People experience instant impressions about names when they are introduced – think of the connotations for Brittany, Eleanor, Barack – these names evoke more than letters arranged in a certain order. In my case, most people have forgotten the ”blight on all mankind” implications. Now it is just a name not heard often and as the myth fades and the website becomes a way of music, my name could become more common. What would that mean to me?

There may be some ambivalence to the idea of sharing a name like mine. I have met only one other human Pandora. At a large leadership seminar for women, out of the thousands of name tags, one caught my eye from across the room. With uncharacteristic courage I bounded up to my doppelganger and waving my own lanyard, grinned broadly and said something insightful like “Wow you are the first human Pandora I have ever met!” Perhaps she had heard too many “box” comments. She looked at me, scanning my enthusiasm from head to toe, and then turned and walked away quickly, never uttering a word. I watched her go, willing myself not to follow, overwhelmingly, irresistibly curious.