From Greek mythology, Astraea is the star-maiden and goddess of justice.
Astraea steps directly out of Greek mythology as the goddess of justice and innocence, daughter of Zeus and Themis (or in some accounts, of Astraeus and Eos). Her name derives from the Greek aster, "star," and she is the star-maiden — the last of the immortals to dwell among humanity during the Golden Age. As the world descended through the Silver and Bronze Ages into increasing wickedness, the other gods retreated to Olympus, but Astraea lingered longest, reluctant to abandon humankind.
Eventually even she ascended, and Zeus placed her among the constellations as Virgo, with her scales of justice becoming the neighboring constellation Libra. The Romans called her Iustitia or Virgo Caelestis, and Renaissance poets seized upon her as the ideal of a lost golden world. Edmund Spenser invoked her in "The Faerie Queene," and the concept of an Astraean age — a future restoration of justice and innocence — threaded through political poetry for centuries.
In the seventeenth century, her name was given to an asteroid and a genus of coral, extending her reach into the natural sciences. As a given name, Astraea has lived mainly in the realm of the literary and the romantic, used by parents drawn to classical mythology and celestial imagery. It shares DNA with the more common Aurora and Stella but carries a weightier story — not merely beautiful, but just. In an era when mythological names like Persephone, Calliope, and Artemis have surged in popularity, Astraea stands as one of the most meaningful: a name that literally places its bearer among the stars and on the side of righteousness.