 Before the decipherment of Linear B the original form of the word was assumed to be *, "hērōw-", but the Mycenaean compound "ti-ri-se-ro-e" demonstrates the absence of -w-.Hero as a name appears in pre-Homeric Greek mythology, wherein Hero was a priestess of the goddess, Aphrodite, in a myth that has been referred to often in literature.According to "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language", the Proto-Indo-European root is "*ser" meaning "to protect".