Chapter CCXXXI: Section I: Greece

Modern Greece has the most direct inheritance from the ancient, classical, and old Christian names. True, her population has undergone changes which leave but little of the proud old Ionian or Dorian blood; but her language has been victorious over the barbarous speech of her conquerors, and Latins and Bulgarians became Greek beneath her influence.

The inhabitants of her peninsulas and islands are, then, with few exceptions, called by Greek names. The exceptions are, in the first place, in favour of the Hebrew names that are in universal use, not only the never-failing Joannes and Maria, but Isaakos, David, Elias, and others, for whom the Greek Church has inculcated more constant veneration than has the Latin. Next there are the few Latin names that were accepted by the Greeks during the existence of the Byzantine empire, and either through martyrs or by favourite sovereigns, recommended themselves to the love of posterity; but these are few in number, and Konstantinos is the only distinguished one. And, lastly, an extremely small proportion have been picked up by intercourse with the Western nations, but without taking root.

The mass of Greek names belongs to the class that I have called ‘Greek Christian,’ being those that were chiefly current in the years of persecution and martyrdom—some old hereditary ones from ancient time, others coined with the stamp of the Faith. These, with others expressive of favourite ideas, such as Macharios, Blessed, Sophia, Wisdom, Zoe, Life, were the staple of the Greeks until the modern revival brought forward the old heroic and historical names; and Achilles, Alkibiades, Themistokles, &c., are again in familiar use.

In a list of names used at the present day in the Ionian Islands, I find seventeen men and four women of the old historical and heroic class; the four ladies being Kalliope, Arethusa, Euphrosyne, and Aspasia; and, perhaps, Psyche and Olympias ought to be added to these: twenty-three male and nineteen female of the Christian Greek class: two Hebrew, _i. e._ Joannes and Jakobos, of men; three of women, Maria, Anna, and Martha. Paulos and Konstantinos, and perhaps Maura, alone represent the Latin, and Artorioos the Kelt, probably borrowed from some Englishman.

Surnames are inherited from the Latin nomina, and began earlier in Constantinople than anywhere else. They are divided between the patronymic, ending, as of old, in _ides_, the local, and the permanent nickname.