In Greek mythology Europa (/jʊˈroʊpə, jə-/; Greek: Εὐρώπη Eurṓpē; Doric Greek: Εὐρώπα Eurṓpā) was a Phoenician woman of high lineage, for whom the continent Europe was named. The story of her abduction by Zeus in the form of a white bull was a Cretan story; as Kerényi points out "most of the love-stories concerning Zeus originated from more ancient tales describing his marriages with goddesses. This can especially be said of the story of Europa".
Europa's earliest literary reference is in the Iliad, which is commonly dated to the 8th century B.C. Another early reference to her is in a fragment of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, discovered at Oxyrhynchus. The earliest vase-painting securely identifiable as Europa, dates from mid-7th century B.C.
The etymology of her Greek name (εὐρυ- "wide" or "broad" and ὤψ "eye(s)" or "face") suggests that Europa as a goddess represented the cow (with a wide face) Hathor, at least on some symbolic level. Metaphorically, at a later date her name could be construed as the intelligent or open-minded, analogous to glaukopis (γλαυκῶπις) attributed to Athena. However, Ernest Klein and Giovanni Semerano suggest a possible Semitic origin in Akkadian erebu "to go down, set" (in reference to the sun) which would parallel occident.
The name of Europe as a geographical term came in use by Ancient Greek geographers such as Strabo to refer to part of Thrace below the Balkan mountains. Later, under the Roman Empire the name was given to a Thracian province.
It is derived from the Greek word Eurōpē (Εὐρώπη) in all Romane languages, Germanic languages, Slavic languages, Baltic languages, Celtic languages, Iranian languages, Uralic languages (Hungarian Európa, Finnish Eurooppa, Estonian Euroopa).
Jürgen Fischer, in Oriens-Occidens-Europa summarized how the name came into use, supplanting the oriens-occidens dichotomy of the later Roman Empire, which was expressive of a divided empire, Latin in the West, Greek in the East.
In the 8th century, ecclesiastical uses of "Europa" for the imperium of Charlemagne provide the source for the modern geographical term. The first use of the term Europenses, to describe peoples of the Christian, western portion of the continent, appeared in the Hispanic Latin Chronicle of 754, sometimes attributed to an author called Isidore Pacensis in reference to the Battle of Tours fought against Muslim forces.
The European Union has also used Europa as a symbol of pan-Europeanism, notably by naming its web portal after her, and depicting her on the Greek €2 coin and on several gold and silver commemorative coins (e.g. the Belgian €10 European Expansion coin). Her name appeared on postage stamps celebrating the Council of Europe, which were first issued in 1956. The second series of euro banknotes is known as the Europa Series and bears her likeness in the watermark and hologram.
The invention of the telescope revealed that the planet Jupiter, clearly visible to the naked eye and known to humanity since prehistoric times, has an attendant family of moons. These were named for male and female lovers of the god and other mythological persons associated with him. The smallest of Jupiter's Galilean moons was named after Europa.