A female name. Greek Φύλλις ‘green leaf’, the name of a girl who hanged herself for love and was turned into a tree. Phyllis was used as a name in Greek and Roman pastoral poetry, and was adopted in England in the 16th C, when it became confused with Felis, the usual English form of Felicia (q.v.), so that it is often difficult to decide which name is meant. For instance, in a list of Yorkshire recusants of 1604 there are a number of cases of Phillis, Philles, Phillice, which almost certainly represent Felice, Felis rather than Phyllis. The 17th-C poets also used the form Phillida and a Fillida was married at Leigh, Lancashire, in 1620. Phyllis became almost obsolete in the 18th and 19th C, but suddenly came back into favour at the end of the 19th C, and is now common.

Occasionally PHILLIS. In Greek, ‘a green leaf’ or ‘bough’. In old myth she was a Thalian who, because her lover so tarried that she thought herself forgotten, committed suicide by hanging: whereupon ‘she was metamorphosed into a tree’ (Blakeney). The name has been much used by lyric and pastoral poets. Robert Greene, Their love begun and ended both in one; Phillis was loved, and she liked Corydon.

Sir Charles Sedley, Phillis, men say that all my vows, Are to thy fortune paid; Alas, my heart he little knows Who thinks my love a trade.

A Greek name, meaning: A green bough.