Apparently, according to one Dutch source (the website of a Dutch museum), there was once a Roman Emperor named
Mauritius Cappadocius.
At first, the name sounded Greek in my ears, because of the second element in the name. 'That must come from Greek
dosis "giving",' I thought. I couldn't find out where the first element came from, though.
But then I discovered via Google that there is an area in Turkey called
Cappadocia - it is likely that the aforementioned Roman Emperor derived his name from that area. According to Wikipedia,
Cappadocia derives its name from:
Persian: Katpatuka meaning "the land of beautiful horses",
Greek: Kappadokía.
But
suppose the name Cappadocius was actually Greek in origin. In the case of the Roman Emperor, he most likely derived his name from the aforementioned Turkish area. But could the name not also have been developed as an independent Greek name, unrelated to the Persian word but similar in appearance and spelling?
If that were possible, it would obviously have been spelled as either
Kappadosios or
Kapadosios, with the second element coming from
dosis "giving." What could the first element have been, assuming it were an authentic Greek name? I can now only think of the Greek letter
kappa and the word
karpos "fruit" (where the 'r' has disappeared).
Do you happen to have any suggestions? I would appreciate that very much. :)
Thank you in advance!
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This message was edited 12/18/2007, 5:53 PM