Ada Lovelace called the friends assigned to watch her as a teenager the “Furies.” Her mother had arranged for close friends to monitor Ada for signs of what Victorian society considered moral misbehaviour.
The arrangement reflected the difficult circumstances of Ada's upbringing. Her parents, the poet Lord Byron and Lady Byron, separated soon after her birth, and Byron died in 1824 when Ada was eight. Lady Byron remained deeply concerned about controlling her daughter's education, conduct and public reputation.
Ada disliked the surveillance and later complained that the observers exaggerated or invented stories about her. Her nickname was pointed rather than affectionate: in Greek mythology, the Furies were fearsome avenging spirits. It captured her resentment at being watched and judged.
The other options—Graces, Sibyls and Muses—sound classical, but none is the name recorded for these teenage monitors. Ada later developed a far more productive intellectual circle, including Charles Babbage and Mary Somerville.