submitted by
Tammie Ward
on 01.06.2009

My husband also spells his name Levantiz, and has also been told that it originates from Malta. I have tried to research this but have found no evidence of this, every time I try to find information it all seems to point in some way to a Greek connection. What is strange is that my husbands family also use all the names mentioned. His grandfather being Peter George, His dad Michael, his uncle Peter and his cousin Paul. It would be very interesting if you could shed any light on this matter.

submitted by
George Poulos
on 02.06.2009

I placed the Levantis wedding entry on the website. My aunty Katina, married a Tasso Levantis in Greece prior to WW11. So many of my cousins are Levantis's.

I suspect that the surname Levantis derives from the region in the Middle East that was called the Levant.

Wiki tells us that "Levant was originally applied to the "Mediterranean lands east of Italy", from the Middle French word levant meaning "the Orient". Historically, the "trade on the Levant" between Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire was of great economic importance. An imprecise term, Levant refers to an area of cultural habitation rather than to a specific geographic region, and its meaning shifts according to historical and cultural reference and preference".

My guess is that persons from Greece who had visited, spent considerable time in, or migrated to the Levant, took on the name Levantis or Levantiz?

This is analogous to the situation of incorporating the hadj into Greek surnames. Again Greeks who had visited, spent considerable time in, or migrated to the Middle East, tended to follow this convention.