Greece Naming Customs: Difference between revisions

*'''Patronymic''', based on a parent’s given name and an added suffix meaning “son of” or “little.” The ending -opoulos is most common in the Peleponnese area. Thus John the son of Nicholas would be Ioannis Nikolopoulos. The possessive case (-ou) was also often used as a patronymic resulting in names such as Grigoriou from Grigorios. Other patronymic endings include: -akis (from Crete); -akos, -ias, -eas (from the Mani region of south Peloponnesus); -atos (from Kefallinia); -elis (from Lesvos); -ikis, -ikas, -akas (from Thessalia); -oudis (from northern Greece); and -idis (from Asia Minor).  

*'''Occupational''', based on the person’s trade, include the following: Raptis (tailor), Papoutsis (shoemaker), Mylonas (miller), Mylonatos or Mylonopoulous (son of the miller), Karvounis (coal man), Kapetanidis (son of ship captain), Anagnostopoulos (son of the acolyte, assistant priest), Sakellariou (son of the Sakellarios, a Byzantine ecclesiastical title), Kaffetzis (coffee house owner), Kaltsis (stockings, probably one who sold stockings), and Ktenas (comb, probably one who sold or made combs). The name Karampinopoulos (son of a gun) probably referred to the son of one who bore arms. Priests of the Orthodox Church married and had families. Their children’s surnames often begin with Papa- (Priest) and are among the most common in Greece.  

*'''Descriptive or nickname''', based on a unique quality of the person, such as Mauros (black) for a person with black hair, dark complexion, or perhaps one who wore black clothing. Other such Greek names include Kontos (short), Spanos (beardless), Spanidis or Spanopoulos (son of the beardless one), Xanthakos (blond), Kokkinis (red), Karapaulakis (son of darkhaired Paul), Galanis (blue-eyed), Katsaros (curly), Makris (long), and Koutsogiorgos (lame George). Other names reflect personality traits such as: Leventis (brave, honorable), Onassis (useful), Katsoufis (never cheerful), Markogiannis (clever John), and Leontidis (lion’s son).  

*'''Geographical''', based on a person’s place of origin, such as Kritikos (Cretan), Thessalonikios (of Thessalonika), Souliotis (of Souli, a region in the Epirus mountains), Arvanitis (Albanian), and Nisiotis (from the islands). From a name such as Kypros (Cyprus) can be formed several names: Kypraios, Kypraiou, Kypriadis, Kypriotis, Kypriotakis, and Kyprizoglou. A name such as Vlahos could refer to the Vlach people (minority ethnic group from the Pindus mountains) or from the occupation of a shepherd, which was the traditional occupation of this people.  

*'''Foreign terms''', from Turkish, Spanish, Italian, Albanian, and Slavic, could have been modified into a Greek surname: Karas (Turkish: black), Paras (Turkish: money), Lekes (Turkish: mark, stain), Katsakis (Turkish: fugitive, escapee), Delapatridis (Italian: of the homeland), and Kolias (Albanian for Nikolaos).