Quiteria

St Quiteria was a second-century virgin martyr who was killed after refusing to renounce her Christian faith in order to marry.

She was born in what is now Portugual, and her name is sometimes used in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries. She is the patron of several Spanish towns, including Toledo, and there are shrines to her in Aire-sur-l-Ardour, France, where she died; and in the village of Kuthenkuly, India.

Her name may derive from Kythere ("the red one"), a title of the Phoenician mother-goddess Astarte, perhaps via Greek Kythereia, an epithet of Aphrodite. The French version is the charming Quitterie.

Pronounced kee-TAIR-ee-uh.