Macedonian Names 14th Century reveal the Greekness of Macedonians

8/9/2019 Macedonian Names 14th Century reveal the Greekness of Macedonians

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Macedonian Names of 14th Century reveal the GreekCharacter of Macedonia

Posted by D-Mak

Examination of Macedonian Names of 14th Century in the Themes of

Thessalonike and Strymon reveals the Greek Character of Macedonia.

THE study of names can tell us a great deal about a society, for names areprimarily a means of social identification. People identify themselves or areidentified by others in ways which may reveal kinship patterns, migrationmovements, economic differentiation or social stratification, superstitiousbeliefs. Children may habitually be named after the paternal or maternalgrandparents, after parents or Siblings. Names may show adherence to areligion or to superstition: the Byzantine parents who named their childrenAporicto or Evreto (rejected and founding) were trying to deceive death,while a man named Prousenos testified to his parents nostalgia for a lost

homeland in Asia Minor. Proper or family names which continue over morethan one generation can show the interest of the family itself or of the state inidentifying people over time.

The Byzantine peasants in Macedonia of the fourteenth century werecommonly identified by a baptismal or given name and some other form ofidentification: a profession, an indication of geographical origin, a nickname,or an indication of relationship to someone else. Both the given names andthe family names are of interest here.

Some names are very common. Men are often named Nikolaos, Demetrios,

Konstantinos, Ioannes, Vasileios, Michael, Manouel, Stamates, Theodoros.Somewhat less frequent are the names Modestos, Nikephoros, Theiotokios,Kyriakos, Foteinos, Athanasios, Petros, Alexios, Stefanos, Xenos. Most ofthese, with the exception of Xenos, Alexios, Modestos and Foteinos, are alsocommon modern Greek names. On the other hand, EvangelosandEleutherios, which occur frequently in modern Greece, are rare in thefourteenth century.

Women were most often called Maria and Anna(as in modern Greece), Zoe,Arete, Chryse, Argyre, Kale, Theodora, Eirene, Xene, Eudokia, Elene,Georgia, and less frequently Vasilike, Ioannousa, Kyriakia, Rossana or

Rossa, Siligno, Sophia, Foteine, Theophano, Stammatike, and Marina. Thename Aikaterine, one of the commonest modern Greek names, is very rarely


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encountered.Some Christian names are very similar to those found amongthe peasants of the Morea in the same period. They fall into three categories:

(1) Those referring to God, the Virgin, and Christ;

(2) Saints names; and

(3) Those deriving from feasts of the Christian calendar.

In the first category, we find Theodoros, Theodora (gift of God), Manouelfrom Emmanuel (the popular form Manolis does not appear in ourdocuments), Theochares, Theiotokios (from the Theotokos, or mother ofGod), Panagiotes, from the adjective of the Virgin which qualifies her asmost saintly, and Christina. Maria, of course, was a very common name.

The saints most often celebrated in peasant names were Theodore,

Demetrius, and George (all military saints), Athanasius and Basil (the fourth-century church fathers), Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, and Helena,his mother. St. Peteris frequently represented, and the name of his assistant,Andronicus, appears occasionally.

A whole series of baptismal names consists of toponymics, something whichone would not expect. Giving a child the name of a city or an island mustmean that the family had had recent connections with the area referred to. Inall three apographaiunder discussion, the greatest number of toponymiescomes from Macedonia itself but, of course, outside the domain in whichthese families are found. This is an expected and logical situation. It simplymeans that the population of mobile one, moved more easily within ratherconfined boundaries. Names like Fourneiotes, Kasandrenos, Melenikeiotes,Ravenikiotes, Didymoteichites, Zigniotes indicate that the families hadmigrated within Macedonia from one domain and one region to another.

Immigration from the rest of Greece, as suggested by names such asThebaios, Korinthios, Moraites, could be as old as the Latin occupation,buthas no reason to be; it is more likely that the emigration in question followedthe reestablishment of Byzantine power in Macedonia, and perhaps even thereestablishment of the Empire at Constantinople. Immigrants from the islandsof the Aegean (that is, people bearing the names Lemnaios, Nesiotes,Naxiotes) probably came to Macedonia in the second half of the thirteenth

century, after the wars of Michael VIII with the remaining Latin states hadmade life on the islands uncertain.


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Some names are obviously of foreign origin, of these mostly are Slavic butalso French, Italian and Spanish. Dragos, Draganos, Slanna, Tobranna,Dragna, Zougla, Malha, Merzana, Volkanos, Tobromeros, are all Slavicnames. Imbert the Franc(,) was probably of Frenchorigin, while Nikephoros Idalkos, son of Dominick, was the offspring of a

Spaniard, perhaps a member of the Catalan Company who had for somereason remained in Macedonia after the invasion of the region by Catalanmercenaries in 1307-1309.

An examination of the households which have a timeseries from 1300-1301 to1341 reveal that:

(a) Theme of Thessalonike

The Slavic Names constitutes Only8% out of the total during 1300-1301

The Slavic Names constitutes Only 5% out of the total during 1320-1321

The Slavic Names constitutes Only 3%out of the total during 1338-1341

(b) Theme of Strymon

The Slavic Names constitutes Only26% out of the total ca. 1316

The Slavic Names constitutes Only 16% out of the total ca. 1325

The Slavic Names constitutes Only30%out of the total ca. 1341

It is characteristic that those who from time to time are designated as (=Macedonians) are always members of Byzantine society orthe Byzantine army, speaking the same language and apparentlyfollowing the same faith, and that they never appear to turn, as the headof a certain group, against the Byzantine state.

This category does not appear to include the more recent immigrants toMacedonia, evidently because they retained their own ethnic


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particularity (language, religion, culture, etc.) and, more important still,their independence from the Byzantine rule. Thus, for example, in nocase could any Bulgars, Slavs or Turks who were known to have settledin the region after a certain period (and who, indeed, became thepermanent residents) ever be described as (=Macedonians).

LIST OF MACEDONIAN LAY PROPRIETORS IN THE THEMES OFTHESSALONIKI AND STRYMON IN THE 2ND HALF OF 13TH AND THE1ST HALF OF THE 14TH CENTURY


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Sources :

Laiou-Thomadakis Angeliki, Peasant Society in the Late ByzantineEmpire,

Ioannes Tarnanides,

http://history-of-macedonia.com/wordpress/2010/03/31/macedonian-names-14th-

century-reveal-greek-character-macedonia/

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Macedonian Names 14th Century reveal the Greekness of Macedonians

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