Everyday LifeGreek → English
Gerasimos
/ʝeˈrasimos/proper noun
A Greek man's name, carried above all by the patron saint of Kefalonia.
The Greek roots
γέρας
géras
prize of honour
Literally: “honoured with a prize”
Follow a root:γέρας1 word
The story of the word
Géras is Homer's word for the prize handed to a hero out of the spoils, and the quarrel that opens the Iliad is a fight over exactly that. The name is not from géron, old man, though the two look close enough that Greek speakers often assume the link. Saint Gerasimos of Kefalonia died in 1579 and fills the island every 16 August; the earlier Gerasimos of the Jordan is the one painted with a lion at his feet.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Byzantine Greek → English
In a sentence
Half the men in the village are called Gerasimos, so everyone goes by a nickname.