Nicknames / Agia Pelagia

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.

Showing 1 - 3 from 3 entries

People > Nicknames

submitted by Ian Perry on 22.04.2023

Origin of “Kaponas” nickname

The nickname “Kaponas” is often found appended to the family name of the Megalokonomos family of Agia Pelagia. The followng is the story of how that came about was related to me by Polychronis Paloyannidis in 2022.

Antonios Megalokonomos (b 1822) married Metaxia Fardouli of Agia Pelagia. She was from a wealthy family. Part of her family's wealth came from breeding chickens and, in particular, roosters. Some of the roosters were sold for their meat which ...

Alai, Theotheros Fardoulys, Ayia Pelagia.

People > Nicknames

submitted by George Poulos on 26.10.2004

Alai, Theotheros Fardoulys, Ayia Pelagia.

Theotheros Fardoulys, and his wife Stavroula, lived in Ayia Pelagia, and had 8 children.

One of them is Tony Fardoulys, Liverpool Real Estate Agent.

The family parachoukli is Alai.

Alai is a Turkish word meaning trusted person, or guard.

The parachoukli may derive from the fact that an ancestor was considered such a "trusted person", under the Turkish administration.

People > Nicknames

submitted by John Zantey on 01.01.2010

Sarandako - Zantiotis

This is the nick name of my paternal grandfather, George Zantiotis (Originally from Karava). [Also Sarandakos].

The name is derived from "Saronto", which too was his grand fathers given name (my great great grand father). The name comes from "Zante", originally from Zakynthos.

As "Saronto" had children, they were refered as "Sarandako", I suppose a cute way of associating children with the original name? and it has been passed down the 'family tree' since. Even ...