In Hesiod’s Works and Days, Hermes gives Pandora her name.
Hesiod describes the gods contributing different qualities to the woman fashioned at Zeus’s command. Hermes, the divine messenger, gives her speech and a deceptive character, and he assigns the name Pandora. The name is commonly interpreted as meaning “all-gifted” or “the gift of all,” reflecting the gods’ combined contributions.
This detail belongs to the myth’s longer account in Works and Days. The poem presents Pandora as a divinely constructed figure whose appearance and attributes are gifts, but whose arrival also brings hardship to humanity. The name therefore has an intentionally double quality: it sounds generous while fitting Zeus’s punitive plan.
Pandora is sometimes said to mean “all-giving,” but the exact nuance depends on interpretation of the Greek compound. Hermes remains the deity explicitly associated with naming her in the standard Hesiodic account.