Metope was a river
nymph, the daughter of the river Ladon. She married the river god Asopus, and bore him Thebe. Her name can be interpreted in different ways, but perhaps we can consider 'forehead' as a suitably propitious name for someone who is or should be 'ahead'.
The source of the name would thus be metopon, 'forehead', 'front', literally 'space between the
eyes' (meta, 'between' and ops, 'eye'). A variant of this could be metopedon, 'with the forehead foremost', 'fronting' and so 'headlong', a good epithet for a
river.
