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Archiver > GREEK-SURNAMES > 2004-10 > 1096832172


From: Marie Louise von Muehlenberg <>
Subject: Re: [GREEK-SURNAMES] General Question: Ottoman Rule
Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 12:36:15 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <41600418.6080609@nc.rr.com>


Dear Joseph,

While indeed there were patronymic surnames in both Greece and Turkey during those years, this was not always the case. There are plenty of Ioanian Greek (i.e. Turkish Greek) surnames that were not patronymic in nature. In my experience, the majority of Ottoman Greek surnames were actually derived from hypocorisms. There were, however, some notable Ottoman Greek families that maintained the same surnames since the Byzantine era. I should say that of these families there were decidedly few.

"Son of" names usually end in -ou. For example, Ioannou would mean "son of Ioannis". Son of Aesop would be Aesopou, but I have never heard this name. If your family was in the Ottoman Empire, it is possible that they adopted the Turkish -oglou at the end of their name to signify "son of".

In contemporary Greek culture, it is customary to give the father's name as the middle name of all children. Other naming traditions include naming the first-born son after the paternal grandfather, the second-born after the maternal grandfather, the first-born daughter after the paternal grandmother, and so on.

I hope I have been of some help to you.

Marie Louise von Muehlenberg

Joseph Puentes <> wrote:

Can anyone shed light on this?:

I heard that in the "old" days. . .probably late 1890 or thereabouts
that folks in Greece didn't have surnames but would be called by the
name of the father. Forexample lets say the father's name was Aesop.
Then his children would be called "son of Aesop" so if his name was
Anastacio then he would be called "Anastacio son of Aesop" and then his
children would be called "_______ son of Anastacio."

Now hold on here I was just given some info that will directly apply to
this. . .seems that parts of Greece were under the Ottoman rule for a
few hundred years and it might be that the above naming pattern might
apply to the Ottoman affected areas but not to the Greeks themselves (I
don't know but maybe the Greeks had their surnames that they would
"unofficially" use when the Ottomans weren't within earshot.

So as you can see I really don't know about this and was hoping someone
could confirm, deny, or in general just set me straight on this. Your
help would be much appreciated.

Joseph Puentes (wife has roots in Greece)



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