Oceanids are the nymphs who were the three thousand daughters of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys. The Oceanids' father, Oceanus was the great primordial world-encircling river, their mother Tethys was a sea goddess, and their brothers the Potamoi were the personifications of the great rivers of the world. Like the rest of their family, the Oceanid nymphs were associated with water, as the personification of springs.
The Oceanids were also responsible for keeping watch over the young. According to Hesiod, who described them as "neat-ankled daughters of Ocean", children who are glorious among goddesses", they are a holy company of daughters who with the lord Apollo and the Rivers have youths in their keeping - to this charge Zeus appointed them.
Hesiod gives the names of 41 Oceanids, with other ancient sources providing many more. While some were important figures, most were not. Some were perhaps the names of actual springs, others merely poetic inventions. Some names, consistent with the Oceanids' charge of having "youths in their keeping", represent things which parents might hope to be bestowed upon their children: Plouto ("Wealth"), Tyche ("Good Fortune"), Idyia ("Knowing"), and Metis ("Wisdom").