"Alyssa" is nowadays a fairly common name for twenty-something females,

none of whom--nor their mothers, apparently--is aware that, as written, it is a name with a peculiar meaning, in Greek, and not merely a vaguely Alice-like sounding succession of syllables ending with what seems to be a feminine singular nominative (though it might be, in Greek, a neuter plural nominative): signifying "cure for rabies." An odd thing, you might think, to call a baby girl.