Names were more than labels in 7th-century BCE Greece; they were "instruction manuals" for a child's desired qualities. Sappho named her daughter Kleis (Κλέις), which literally translates to "Key," the heavy, L-shaped bronze clasp used to shift a massive door bolt in archaic Lesbos. She named her -- as was common at the time -- after her own mother, to evoke the matrilineal keykeeper to the access gate not only of the home but a higher value than the one represented by wealthy and decadent Lydia.
There's mine a luminous child, called Key, the same name as my mother's,
Who carries the auric luster in her form of golden flowers;
I would not exchange her for all of Lydia or her lucre.
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ἔστι μοι κάλα πάις χρυσίοισιν ἀνθέμοισιν
ἐμφέρη⟨ν⟩ ἔχοισα μόρφαν Κλέις ἀγαπάτα,
ἀντὶ τᾶς ἔγωὐδὲ Λυδίαν παῖσαν οὐδ’ ἐράνναν . . .
