Chapter L: Section II: Alexander, &c

Conquering Macedon was the portion of Greece, if Greece it could be called, that spread its names most widely and permanently; and as was but right, no name was more universally diffused than that of the great victor, he who in history is as prominent as Achilles in poetry. Ἀλέξανδρος (Alexandros), from ἀλέξω (alexo), to help, and ἄνδρες (andres), men, was said to have been the title given to Paris by the shepherds among whom he grew up, from his courage in repelling robbers from the flocks. It was afterwards a regular family name among the kings of Macedon, he who gave it fame being the third who bore it. So much revered as well as feared was this mighty conqueror, that his name still lives in proverb and song throughout the East. The Persians absolutely adopted him into their own line, and invented a romance by which ‘Secunder’ was made the son of a native monarch. Among the eastern nations, Iskander became such a by-word for prowess, that even in the sixteenth century the Turks would find no greater title of fear for their foe, the gallant Albanian, Georgios Kastriotes, than Skander Beg, or Lord Alexander.

Not only did the great conqueror possess many namesakes,—as indeed, there is a story that all the children born the year of his conquest of India were called after him,—but Alexandros was already frequent in Greece; and among the kingdoms formed out of the fragments of his empire, it recurred so as to become usual all over the Græcized East. Even the Maccabean Jews used it, and it was common in Judea, as well as elsewhere, in the time of the Gospels, so that a large proportion of saints and martyrs bore it and handed it on, especially in Greece and Italy. A pope, martyred in the second century, rendered it a papal assumed name; and the Italians used it frequently as Alessandro, shortened into Sandro. Nowhere, however, is it so thoroughly national as in Scotland, imported thither, apparently, with other Greek names, by Margaret Ætheling, who learnt them in the Hungarian court where she was born and brought up. Her third son was the first of the three Scottish Alexanders, under whom the country spent her most prosperous days.

No wonder his namesakes were numerous. In the Highlands they came to be Alaster, and formed the surname MacAlister; in the south, the contractions were Alick, Saunders, or Sandy, and the feminine Alexa, Alexandrina, and Alexandra, are chiefly German and Russian, though now and then occurring in France.

The first half of this name, Alexios, a defender, was in use in ancient Greece, where it belonged to a noted sculptor. Its saintly honours did not begin till the fifth century, when a young Roman noble, called Allexius or Alexis, is said to have been so much bent on a monastic life, that being compelled by his parents to marry, he fled away on his wedding day, and lived seventeen years in a convent in Syria; but, finding his reputation for sanctity too much for his humility, he came home in guise of a poor pilgrim, and spent another seventeen years as a beggar maintained on the scraps of his father’s kitchen, and constantly mocked and misused by the servants, until in his dying moments, he made himself known to his parents. His church at Rome, called St. Alessio, gives a title to a cardinal; and his day, July 17th, is observed by the Greeks as well as the Romans; and yet so strange is his history that it almost seems as if it might have been one of those instances in which an allegory acquired the name of a real saint, and attached itself to him as a legend. Alessio has in consequence always been an Italian name, and with the family of the Komnenoi, Alexios came into use among the Byzantine Greeks, with whom it was very frequent. Alexia is often found as a lady’s name in old records and accounts of the middle ages; but it is apparently intended merely as the Latin equivalent for Alice, which we shall show by-and-by to have had an entirely different origin.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐
│ English. │ Scotch. │ French. │ Italian. │Spanish. │
│Alexander │Alexander │Alexandre │Alessandro │Alejandro │
│Alex │Alick │ │ │ │
│ │Sanders │ │ │ │
│ │Sandy │ │ │ │
│ │Sawny │ │ │ │
│ │Elshender │ │ │ │
│ │Elshie │ │ │ │
│ │Alaster │ │ │ │
├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│ Russian. │ Polish. │ Slavonic. │ Ung. │ │
│Aleksander │Aleksander │Aleksander │Sandor │ │
│Ssachka │Leszek │Skender │ │ │
│Ssaschinka │ │ │ │ │
├────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┤
│ FEMININE │
├────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┤
│ English. │ Italian. │Portuguese. │ Spanish. │ │
│Alexis │Alessio │Aleixo │Alejo │ │
│Alexis │ │ │ │ │
│Alexe │ │ │ │ │
├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│ Russian. │ Slavonic. │ Servian. │ Lusatian. │ Hungarian. │
│Alexei │Ales │Aleksa │Alex │Elek │
│Alescha │Leks │ │Halex │ │
│ │ │ │Holex │ │
└────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘