Hesiod first uses the name “Pandora” for the first woman in the surviving Greek literary tradition. His Works and Days gives the fullest ancient account of her creation and the opened container.
Hesiod was an early Greek poet generally dated to the seventh century BCE. The Pandora episode appears in Works and Days as part of a discussion of why human life includes toil and suffering. Zeus creates Pandora after Prometheus’s theft of fire, making her arrival part of a divine punishment narrative.
Homer does not provide the familiar Pandora story, and the Roman poets Ovid and Virgil wrote much later. Later authors and artists reworked the myth, helping spread versions in which the jar became a box and Pandora’s role was interpreted in different ways.
The wording “first woman” reflects Hesiodic mythology, not a universal claim about all Greek traditions. Ancient myths often have overlapping versions, but Hesiod is the key surviving source for the named Pandora narrative.