Isis: she is the epitome of femininity, an Egyptian goddess worshipped as a mother and wife, a patroness of nature and magic. A friend of slaves, sinners, artisans and the downtrodden, she’s a protector of the dead and a goddess of children and motherhood. Her name, meaning “woman of the throne”, is bestowed on thousands of girls taking their first breaths around the world; last year it was ranked as the 575th most popular girl’s name in the US. But now the gentle moniker of the fairer sex — in the form of a screaming acronym — has been hijacked by the world’s newest and most frightening embodiment of organized terror: the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (commonly referred to as ISIS). Will Isis ever be able to throw off this new shroud of terror and regain its womanly strengths? [And see update re. the name “Daesh” below.]

Among the thousands of women named Isis around the world, there are a number of some renown: the actresses Isis Carmen Jones and Isis Valberde; the models Isis Casalduc, Isis Gomes, and Isis King (or Isis Tsunami), as well as 1954’s Miss Cuba, Isis Finaly; Isis Nyong’o, the Kenyan-American media and technology leader; and Isis Pogson, the late British astronomer and meteorologist, are but a few.

Isis names a famous river in England, a highway in Australia, and an aircraft instrument display. A lunar crater, a British prison and several tropical cyclones share the Egyptian goddess’s name, as does a grammatical sentence form and an opera by Lully. The list goes on: Bob Dylan wrote a song called “Isis” and so did the Yeah Yeah Yeahs; an American post-metal band, a ’70s all-female horn-rock band and an Australian rock band all wear the name proudly. A magazine, bridge, rowing crew and technology transfer company were all named after the famous river running through Oxford, and HMS Isis marks the sterns of several British Royal Navy ships.

Isis names many.

Some organizations that share their name (or acronym) with the terrorist group have felt compelled to change their monikers and identities to avoid any association with the fearsome young caliphate. The mobile payments app Isis Wallet, for example, is changing its name to Softcard. But this is something of a luxury that acronym-named establishments can afford: it’s just not that easy to change your name when you’re a band, a song, a river, or a person. Can every Isis on the planet — named for the goddess of womanly strengths — be expected to “re-brand” themselves for fear of being stained by the sins of a deadly mission?

The Institute for Science and International Security — a nuclear nonproliferation think-tank — is addressing this question head-on. Rather than shedding its newly-shameful handle, this ISIS is encouraging the world’s media not to use the acronym when referring to the terrorist group. “The widespread, persistent use of the acronym ISIS to refer to this terrorist organization continues to cause considerable confusion and is causing reputational harm to the many organizations and entities that also use this acronym. The Institute for Science and International Security, a non-profit institution which has used the acronym ISIS since 1993, would like to urge media and foreign policy analysts to no longer refer to Al-Dawla Al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham by the name ‘ISIS’ but to choose another alternative.” There are such alternatives available: the group is also known as IS (Islamic State) and ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant).

May the world’s media follow this very worthy directive.

Meanwhile, below is a list — by no means exhaustive — of some of the entities, places, organizations, forces of nature and creative works that are proud to bear the Isis or ISIS name.

Update on 17 Nov, 2015:

As Laura Reston reported yesterday in the New Republic: “World leaders have taken to calling ISIS “Daesh,” a word the Islamic State hates. … Since the attacks in Paris, both John Kerry and François Hollande have used it. The Kurdish militants battling ISIS in Iraq already use the term regularly, though they risk losing their tongues by uttering it. … Daesh is an acronym. It stands for the Arabic name of the Islamic State: al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham. When Jen Percy, a New Republic contributor, went to northern Iraq this year, the Assyrian Christians waging a war against ISIS were calling ISIS troops “Daesh.” In her article for our September issue, she called it “a pejorative term for ISIS in Arabic.” … Zeba Khan, writing for the Boston Globe, has explained why “Daesh” could be read as an insult: “Depending on how it is conjugated in Arabic, it can mean anything from ‘to trample down and crush’ to ‘a bigot who imposes his view on others.’”

Miscellaneous:

The Isis, a part of the River Thames in Oxford, England

Isis, a journal focusing on the history of science, medicine and technology

Isis magazine, a student magazine at Oxford University

Isis (HM Prison), a young offenders institution located in London, England

Hurricane Isis, several tropical cyclones

Isis or double copula, an English sentence with the word is twice in succession

Isis, the Oxford University reserve rowing crew at the Boat Race

Places and geographical landmarks:

Isis Bridge, a bridge across the River Thames near Oxford, England

Isis Highway, an Australian highway

3 Isis Rivers in Australia: in New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania

Isis Temple, a prominence in Grand Canyon, Arizona, US

Shire of Isis, a former local government area in Queensland, Australia

In transportation:

Integrated standby instrument system, a backup instrument display for aircraft

Integrated Sensor is Structure, a project to develop an airship for intelligence use

Morris Isis, a car by Morris Motors from 1929 to 1931 and a car from the British Motor Corporation in the 1950s

Toyota Isis, a seven-seat large MPV manufactured by Kanto Auto Works under contract for Japanese automaker Toyota

ISIS Drive, (International Splined Interface Standard) a bicycle bottom bracket interface specificatio

Isis (ship), a grain ship of Ancient Rome, described by Lucian

HMS Isis, several British Royal Navy ships

USC&GS Isis, an early 20th-century survey ship

In science:

Isis (genus), a soft coral genus

Isis (lunar crater)

ISIS neutron source, a pulsed neutron and muon source

ISIS (satellite), a series of Canadian satellites designed to study the ionosphere

42 Isis, an asteroid

In music:

Isis (band), an American post-metal band

Isis (Brisbane band), a rock band

Isis (horn-rock band), a 1970s all-female band

Isis (Lully), a 1677 opera by Jean-Baptiste Lully and Philippe Quinault

“Isis” (song), by Bob Dylan

“Isis”, a song from the album Voyage to Isis by Delta-S

“Isis”, a song from the EP Is Is by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs

In computers and programming:

Isis (mobile payment system), a joint venture between US wireless carriers

ISIS (operating system), used on the Intel 8085 processor

IS-IS, a network routing protocol

Integrated Scientific Information System, software programs including the MDL Chime plug-in

ISIS/Draw, a chemistry modeling program

ISIS Modelling Software, a river modelling software

ISIS Papyrus, a Swiss-based software vendor

CDS ISIS, a non-numerical information storage and retrieval software developed by UNESCO

Image and Scanner Interface Specification, an interface for image scanning technologies

Integrated Software for Imagers and Spectrometers, a software to process images and spectra collected by NASA planetary missions

Infinitely Scalable Information Storage, a video storage system from Avid Technology

ISIS, a variant of the JOSS programming language

ISIS, a networking tool, part of Proteus

Fictional characters:

Cartoon characters named Isis in Bluewater Comics, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Stargate, Battlestar Galactica; and Isis Eaglet in Magical Chronicle Lyrical Nanoha Force

Organizations with the acronym ISIS:

ISIS Pharmaceuticals: a biomedical pharmaceutical company working on new treatments for Crohn’s Disease.

The Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society: an organization of writers that promotes the ideas of secularism, democracy and human rights within Islamic society. Part of the Center for Inquiry.

Institute of Science in Society: an interest group that campaigns against what it sees as unethical uses of biotechnology. The group published about climate change, GMOs, homeopathy, traditional Chinese medicine, and water memory.

International Species Information System: an international non-profit organization serving more than 800 zoos and aquariums in 80 countries.

Isis Innovation Ltd: a British technology transfer company: a wholly-owned subsidiary of the University of Oxford, managing technology transfer and academic consulting for Oxford