Nicknames / Asprogas

Because Kythera was settled in such a way that a few dozen original families spawned the majority of present-day Kytherians, almost every branch of every family had a "nickname" to distinguish it from that of others with the same surname.

The nicknames were sometimes simply the genitive form of a christian name (e.g. "Dimitrelou") or derived from the profession of an ancestor (e.g. "Miliotis" = "Miller") or even describe a physical attribute (e.g. "Koutsaftis" or "Tarzan").

This is the section of the website where you can view the island's nicknames and read about which surnames they are associated with and hopefully where they came from as well.

You can submit to the section by clicking on add to nicknames at the top right.

People > Nicknames

submitted by Georgia Pine on 27.09.2006

Bey - Aronis

My maternal grandfather came from Aroniadika and was called Emmanuel Bey because his father had the carriage of a Turkish ruler whose title was "bey". His real parachoulki was Moustakas. He married Gariflayia Mastroyiannis. They all used the last name Aronis, a derivative of the town of Aroniadika.