History Summarized: Alexander the Great

Linguistically speaking, Alexander means "Defender of Men" from the Greek "alexo", defend, and "aner/ander", man. I'll never be able to not internally think of his name as just meaning "Alex-Man".
Oh, yeah, also he conquered an empire or something? IDK. I stopped paying attention after his bland name.

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[ChaoticEmperor]

Mythologically speaking, being the son of Zeus isn’t that impressive since like half of Greece could claim that

[TheStartrek]

"Dude, we knew Philip"

These people don't know their mythology if they think a woman being married ever stopped Zeus.

[kevinr.]

"Son of Zeus? Really? Come on, dude, we _knew_ Phillip."
Well, yeah, Zeus was obviously his mother.
There are weirder things in Greek mythology.

[angeloabbatiello]

Darius: Lets talk this out one ten to another.

Alexander: I’m an eleven but go ahead.

[vicenzostella]

Me: Who are you?
Alexander “the Alright”: I am the son of Zeus!
Me: Do you realize how little that narrows it down?

[Horesmi]

"...Actually, the son of Zeus!"
Spare me. Which one? There are like 50k of them, it's not that special.

[alexolas]

Alexander the Soon-to-be-Great
Alexander the Oblique
Alexander the Swell
Alexander the Shiny and New
Alexander the Suddenly Preoccupied
Alexander the Legit
Alexander the Passable
Alexander with the Good Hair
Alexander the Thorough
Alexander the Alright
Alexander the Adaptable
Alexander the Hostagetaker
Alexander the Hamilton
Alexander the Flammable
Alexander the _alriiiight, alriiiight, alriiiight_
Alexander the Insistent
Alexander the Thoroughly Miffed
Alexander the Persistent
Alexander the Absolutely Flawless
Alexander the Adventuresome
Alexander the Overhyped
Alexander the Regal
Alexander the Feisty
Alexander the Good Boy
Alexander the
Alexander the Demigod
Alexander the Underwood
Alexander the Not Done Yet
Alexander the Elfheid
Alexander the Ample
Alexander the Tactically Gifted
Alexander the Decent
Alexander the Alexandest
Alexander the A.O.K.
Alexander the Eastbound
Alexander the Blandly Named
Alexander the
Alexander the
Alexander the
Alexander the Dead
Alexander Promachos
Alexander Aristos
Alexander the Conqueror
Alexander the Horseman
Alexander the _(ugh, damnit...!)_ Great

[VickyTheVickname]

Alexander the Increasingly Complex Name

[LoudWaffle]

Nah I like his title "the Great" simply because it's so short and all-encompassing. That was the point, he was styling himself as the end-all be-all of EVERYTHING.

What's he great at? Yes.

[AlexT-synm]

Alexandros / Αλέξανδρος: Linguistically speaking, "Alexo / Αλέξω" does NOT mean "to defend", but actually "to make flee", to route [the enemy]. I keep seeing this incorrect translation in English, and whenever I flip to the etymology in my native Greek language, it is always the opposite: "Alexandros" literally means "he whom makes men flee"; NOT "defender of men" (btw, this very common mistake by non-Greek speakers, was heavily stressed upon us by our Greek language teachers in school as a cautionary tale -> "know your own language because others won't", so-to-speak).

"Alexo / Αλέξω" is a verb that comes from the word "Alex / Αλέξ" = "to make flee" (thus the name Alex is actually a pure ancient Greek word), so "Alexo / Αλέξω" is in reference to one's self: " 'I' make/cause [someone to] flee". The second part of the name, "-andros / -ανδρος" (Alexandros / Αλέξανδρος= Alexo + andros) is a conjugated form of the noun "anir / ανήρ" (pronounced like "paneer" lol), meaning "man" in the sense of the masculine gender (because "man" in the sense of species is "anthropos/άνθρωπος"). So "Alexandros" does not mean protector of men, but in fact it refers to a brave and mighty warrior that repels his enemies and causes them to flee.

I guess you could say that it means "defender of men" in the sense of dispersing the enemies? but that is only a loose and indirect understanding; NOT an accurate, word-for-word translation - and if you translate it as "defender of men/he whom defends men", you are in error. The correct literal meaning is "Alexandros"= "disperser of men; he who makes men flee", aka he who routes the enemy.

I hope this has been helpful, since English "etymologies" (another greek word, which literally means "true word/speech") of ancient Greek words are frequently in error, and the mis-translation of Alexandros is one of the most common such cases.

(For those interested in the specifics of the conjugation of the word "anir":
1) " [o] anir / ο ανήρ" = 'the man' in the most general sense.
2) " [tou] andros / του ανδρός" = "of the man" -> it indicates possession BY the man.
3) "to andri" / "τω ανδρί" = 'to the man' -> sense of the man being acted upon; like "I saw/I talked 'to the man' ". And lastly,
4) "oo aner / ω άνερ" = 'man' in the sense of directly addressing him, calling out to him: "hey you! hey 'man' ").

[jacylnjaggar]

"Alexander the alright alright alright" I love all of the names blue used in this episode

[shadiversity]

So much better than the movie, and I think I will now call him Alexander the many titles thanks to this video ^_^

[sylendraws]

I hate it when my edgy teen conquers all of Persia

[ryanmoran]

“Not the ocean fire thing, that would be incredibly difficult”
The Byzantine empire would like to know your location

[sflaningam]

So in putting down rebellion, Alexander's strategy was to invent the "come at me" meme?

[KirillTheBeast]

In Spain we call him "Alejandro Magno" which is objectively better than "el Grande" (the Great), as we have many of them, but only one "Magno".

[MeatGuyJ]

Honestly, I think Alexander the Great sums his title up very well. It's short and to the point, unlike "Alexander, Baselius of Macedonia, Hegemon of the Hellenic League, Shahhanshah of Persia, Pharaoh of Egypt, Lord of Asia."

[ChocoboProduction]

In defense of Sparta, they still got that sass going for them. Plutarch (lived about 400 years later, so take it with a grain of salt!) tells a story where Philip actually sent an envoy to Sparta, telling them "If I conquer your city, your houses will burn, your wifes and children will be slaves and you will be killed!"
The spartans replied: "If."
Philip obviously didn't bother anymore after this.
From this (and other stories like it) derived the word "laconic" for REALLY short and REALLY sassy comments. (Since the region around Sparta was called Laconia and the spartans therefore were known as "Laconians".)

[Hawkfire]

The way my professor explained the “son of Zeus” boy was like this: the priest greeted Alexander with terminology along the lines of [i forget which god sorry] welcomes you, my son” but through a slip in translation Alexander heard “Welcome, son of [god]” and that god got syncrotized into Zeus.

[ActiveAdvocate]

That whole "son of Zeus" thing was a misunderstanding. See, the oracle's Greek wasn't so good, and he meant to call Alexander "perdion" ("my son"). INSTEAD, he slipped up and called him "perdeos" ("son of God"), which convinced Alexander that he was the son of Zeus. Oops. Also, I probably didn't spell either word correctly.