Perhaps I have been on the wrong track

 Having failed conclusively to make headway on finding out more about Charlie Ross and his Greek origins, I am wondering if I have been on the wrong track for a long time.

 

The family story, from my father and his sister, was that the family name was Rostopolous. The diversion arose because the other family story was that Charlie was from Ithaca where the name Rostopolous does not exist in any native sense. I know from his mistake signing his marriage certificate that Charlie's Greek name began with ROS and because I fixated on Ithaca, the search was for surnames which began with those three letters.

 

I am now wondering if the story about the family name was correct but the story about where in Greece Charlie came from was wrong.

 

A Rostopolous family is registered in the 1940 US census for Massachusetts.  The parents were born in Greece but it does not say where. 

 

James Rostopoulos in the 1940 Census

 

Age        13, born abt 1927

 

Birthplace             Massachusetts

 

Gender  Male

 

Race      White

 

Home in 1940    

 

57 Market Street

 

Cambridge,

 

Middlesex, Massachusetts

 

Household Members                       Age

 

Head      Peter Rostopoulos              42

 

Wife       Anna Rostopoulos              37

 

Son        Alec Rostopoulos 15

 

Son        James Rostopoulos            13

 

Son        Anthony Rostopoulos         7

 

This snapshot of James Rostopoulos's life was captured by the 1940 U.S. Census.

 

When James Rostopoulos was born about 1927, his father, Peter, was 29 and his mother, Anna, was 24. In 1940, he was 13 years old and lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his father, mother, and 2 brothers.

 

I am now going to work at tracking down where in Greece the Rostopolous family may have lived.  This may help.

 

 

Looking at the prefix of your Greek last name to determine the meaning

More often than not, by breaking your Greek last name into two, you can easily find out the meaning. Below we examine common “prefixes” or the first half of the surname.

 

Greek last names beginning in Archi–, meaning the first in charge or the boss

Greek last names beginning in Chondro–, meaning fat

Greek last names beginning in Gero–, meaning old or wise

Greek last names beginning in Hadji–, Arabic for someone who has made a pilgrimage (for Christians this was to Jerusalem, for Muslims it was Mecca)

Greek last names beginning in Kara–, meaning black in Turkish

Greek last names beginning in Konto–, meaning short

Greek last names beginning in Makro–, meaning tall

Greek last names beginning in Mastro–, meaning mason or worker

Greek last names beginning in Palaio–, meaning old

Greek last names beginning in Papa–, meaning priest (this is often used with one of the suffixes meaning “son of”)

This says that Rosto was probably the name of the individual whose son became Rostopolous. Rosto is a Portugese word which means face or visage. 

Looking at the sufix of your Greek last name to determine the meaning

The sufix of the surname will often relate to the prefix. See the examples below.

 

Greek last names ending in –akis and –oulis are diminutive (cute or small) forms of the suffix e.g. Theodorakis is the diminutive form of Theodoros

Greek last names ending in –lis and –tis are Turkish for “of” or “from”, usually referring to the place of origin e.g. Politis means someone from the Poli (which is what Constantinople was referred to for short)

Greek last names ending in –idis,  –ides, –iadis, and –iades, meaning son of

 

 

Greek last names ending in –opoulos, meaning son of or descendant of

 

 

Greek last names ending in –oglou and –oglu, meaning son of in Turkish

SO ROSTOPOLOUS IS THE SON OF ROSTO.

How to identify the location where your Greek last name originated

In many Greek last names, you can identify the location it originated by looking at the ending of the name.

 

 

Greek last names ending in –opoulos, likely originated in the Peloponnese

 

The Peloponnese is a peninsula located at the southern tip of the mainland, 21,549.6 square kilometres (8,320.3 sq mi) in area, and constitutes the southernmost part of mainland Greece.

 

However, an island off this area is Kythera and when I first started pondering Ithaca as the origin, given the heaviness of Charlie's accent as recorded, I wondered if it was Kythera and not Ithaca.

 

I have sent the following to the Kythera Genealogy Project.

 

I am trying to find the origin of my Greek great-grandfather, Charles Ross. He anglicized his name after jumping ship in South Australia in the mid 19th century. The family story was the name was Rostopolous and he came from Ithaca. I have had no luck making any sort of Ithaca connection and wondered, given his grandchildren said he had a very heavy accent, if he was saying Kythera and it was heard as Ithaca which is similar in sound and more commonly known.

 

Are there Rostopolous family from Kythera? My great-grandfather was a sailor, supposedly on his uncle's ship, who was probably also a sailor and not an owner, and he spoke a number of languages including Greek and English. Charles Ross would have been born about 1849 and he married in Gladstone, SA in 1888 and had five children, all of which were given one Greek name.

John Constantinus, Charles Vangelios, Georgina Anastasia, Christos Chrysantheous and Spiros Andrew.

 

Charles Ross gave his father's name on his marriage certificate as Christos. I know that there are family connections in terms of naming children in Greece.

Image one is the marriage certificate for Charlie Ross and Mary (Polly) Atkins. 
Image two is a family wedding and my grandfather, Charles Vangelios Ross is on the far right with his daughter Jessie Ross (Sands) in front of him and his older daughter, Flora Ross (Swincer) on the left as the other flower girl.