Dear all,
This is not of momentous importance but I would like to clarify some etymology. A new genus, Paramytha is proposed (not yet Code valid, but that is a discussion for another day) and the authors incorrectly state the etymology is "based on the stem "amytha" as commonly used in ampharetid nomenclature". There's no comment on what 'amytha' might mean or where it came from, which is what you want to know in an etymology. And there's a good reason for that.
The original name is actually Samytha, as used by Malmgren, 1866. It is unstated by Malmgren, but it seems at the time he was using transliterated ancient Greek names of women for genera. Ampharete (the base of the family name), Samytha, and Melinna are Greek female names used in the same work. Later Benham created Amythas, and stated that name is formed by transfer of the initial "S" of Samytha to the end. There is no "amytha" as a name basis used in the ampharetids. Instead we have the Samytha-based names of Amphi/samytha, Eu/samytha, Micro/samytha, Neo/samytha. There is also Samyth/ella, and Samyth/opsis
Melinna is still in use as a girl's name - I don't think Samytha is.
Cheers,
Geoff
