There are multiple origins and translations for the name Lamia:
1. Arabic name (لَامِعَة) [Lamiah] denotation - "brilliant, lustrous, shining, radiant" .
2. Latin name, and interpretation is - "lamia; witch"
In Greek mythology Lamia was a beautiful queen of Libya who became a child-eating daemon. Aristophanes claimed her name derived from the Greek word for gullet λαιμός denotation - "neck"), referring to her habit of devouring children.
Some accounts say she has a serpent's tail below the waist. This popular description of her is largely due to Lamia, a poem by John Keats published in 1819. Antoninus Liberalis uses Lamia as an alternate name for the serpentine drakaina Sybaris. However, Diodorus Siculus describes her as having nothing more than a distorted face.
Later traditions referred to many lamiae; these were folkloric monsters similar to vampires and succubi that seduced young men and then fed on their blood.
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