Does anyone know the origin of the last name Csikos?

Question

Is it Hungarian??????

Answer 1

Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro are all countries where the name has shown up more than once. All of the countries used to be under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire which later became the Empire of Austria-Hungary. It's clearly a name that developed in the eastern parts of the empire because the word is built from Cyrillic (Greek-based) letters [alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon...], not the letters we're familiar with in the western alphabet [a, b, c, d, e...].

What I saw in looking at passenger records, it's fair to say it's an Eastern European name, but not fair to limit it to Hungary itself. You can distinguish it from central European names because the CSI isn't CSA (closer to Austria) or CZU (more Polish).

I'm not a classically trained linguist, but I've researched in the region well over 20 years. If I had to make an educated guess, I'd say the name started in the Balkan region and spread from there. The little fiefdoms in place when it started were assimilated by the Ottomans (hence the Cyrillic influences) and that's probably where the word "csiko" developed. Then came the development of surnames when the land was Moldavia and those who worked with the horses probably assumed the name Csikos as a descriptor of their contribution to society. "Janos di csikos" would have been Janos the horseman. His kids would have become known as the kids of the horseman. Add in the need for standardized names to track people for the purpose of taxation and suddenly they're all the "horseman family"...Csikos.

Answer 2

You already asked this question and gave the 10 points to someone who gave a long but not really helpful answer.

Once more: it is Hungarian and means "horseman". Hungarian speakers were spread over a lot of countries in the old Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, so that countries of origin such as Slovakia, Romania, Serbia, Yugoslavia refer to citizenship rather than ethnic/linguistic origin, which is quite probably always Hungarian. There is no Cyrillic background whatseoever; the letters "cs" in Hungarian signify the sound "tch".

Answer 3

I am Hungarian and it is certain that there exists such a surname in Hungary, it is written with an accent on the letter "O". It means "horse herdsman". It is a word still used today for a man who is in charge of a herd (usually a quite a large one) of horses.

Answer 4

Sorry but this was the only way to reach you as you were not
e-mail accessible. Do not assume that you cannot help-are you really a hygienist in Europe? Where in Europe-I will be there next month! If you are as good as you claim, it would be worth the train ride to you!

Answer 5

It sounds a bit Greek, or Slovakian name

Answer 6

Sounds Greek to me.

Answer 7

It's almost certainly Greek.