Ino was the daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia who became the wife of Athanas. Her name is so short that we can only speculate on an origin: perhaps is, inos, 'sinew', 'force', with some erotic or orgiastic connotation in the
root. We are certainly told that she and her sisters Agave and Autonoë were stricken with a Bacchic frenzy in which they tore to pieces Agave's son
Pentheus who had been spying on them.
After her death, however, Ino became known as
Leucothea, and if this name (which see) relates to the white waves of the sea, then it is possible that Ino's original name was actually Ilo, and derives from Mo, 'to roll'. But further suggestions will only be even more fanciful than this.
