"Artena" is simply spelled, and I like it. It is uncommon. As a child, I thought her old-timey name invoked the tinkle of dangly chandelier earrings. Face it: if Artena had been a Mary or an Emma she wouldn't be nearly as special... or as easy to research.
A rose may a rose by any other name, but it's not Artena.
Most any baby name site will claim only five United States babies have been named "Artena" in the last 100 years. From there, the so-called etymology gets pretty weird, and utterly irrelevant. Baby names are typically given on gut instinct and chosen from a totally random well of words. My own [totally frustrating] name came from a baby name booklet my mother received in the early 1970s, and she did not consider its origins, standard pronunciation, or meaning. Didn't matter.
I originally assumed Artena was chosen because it resonates with Mulvena, Edna, Florence, Lula and Helena—the names of her five older sisters. There's a pleasing symmetry to a string of kid names that circle around the same family of sounds. But here's a more radical theory: did Artena's parents encounter one of the many early 1900s newspaper exposés on Artena, Italy? Artena was famed as "the wickedest city in the world".
The mountainous town was the ho-hum "Monte Fortino" until 1848, when it was identified and renamed as the site of the ancient Volscian village of Artena (this fact has never been proven). By 1900, it had a more lurid claim to fame.
"This town of 4,000 inhabitants lives in history as the southern hatching-oven of evil-doers and felons....'No possible punishments can deter them from heaping up crime upon crime, for their perversity of mind is more fertile in inventing new offenses than the imagination of judges is in new punishments.'"—The Salt Lake Herald, 18 Jun 1898
The Herald's lengthy investigative piece on Artena, Italy—including an overseas journey to the actual den of iniquity—thoroughly amuses. Reader be warned: the correspondent achieves his jaunty tone through frequent, less than genteel reference to the Italian citizenry. But do try this experiment: if you focus your awareness on that era's xenophobic trends, the article will cast an entirely new light on life as we know it. [Downloadable PDF at end]
For a more accessible experience, here's a fun sidebar from Harrisburg, Nebraska's Banner County News, dated July 8, 1920. Practically every inhabitant of Artena, Italy is a criminal or the child of a criminal!
What do you think: did people of Artena's acquaintance recognize her name from this so-called reportage? It seems so silly a century later.
Should murder and mayhem not fit your bill, Artena is also the scientific name of a genus of moth....
.... And of a gorgeous, antique model manufactured by the Italian car company Lancia in the 1930s and early 1940s (total production of 5,567 units).
In light of all these facts—scientific or otherwise—I leave you with a parting message on language from the inimitable Maya Angelou:
"Some day we’ll be able to measure the power of words. I think they are things. They get on the walls. They get in your wallpaper. They get in your rugs, in your upholstery, and your clothes, and finally in to you."—Maya Angelou
1898 Artena, Italy travel exposé download:
Photo Credits
Artena, Italy: By Ferdinando Chiodo - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2382961
Artena, moth genus: By Vinayaraj - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76388152
Lancia Artena: By Tony Harrison from Farnborough, UK - LANCIA IN THE PIAZZA UK CENTENARY Covent Garden London 2007_MG_3273, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3823802
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