The Fifty Nereids: Names, Variants, Meanings, Sources and Myths An important textual problem: are there exactly fifty? Ancient mythology does not preserve one universally agreed list of exactly fifty names. Hesiod explicitly says that Nereus and Doris had fifty daughters , but the transmitted catalogue can yield fifty-one names . Manuscripts apparently give Proto ( Prōtō ) twice. Editors often change the first occurrence to Protho ( Prōthō ) or Ploto ( Plōtō ). If the two occurrences of Proto are treated as one person, there are fifty. Another scholarly solution treats Nemertes , “unerring,” as an epithet of Pronoe , rather than as a separate daughter. Homer names thirty-three of Thetis’s sisters; including Thetis herself, thirty-four Nereids are named in the scene. Pseudo-Apollodorus lists forty-five. Pseudo-Hyginus claims fifty, but his surviving catalogue has forty-nine entries, including duplications and probable textual corruption. The following is therefore a ...