View Message

Your name most certainly comes from the Ilirs - the ancestors of Albanians. Ilirs were an ethnicity that inhabited the Balkan peninsula long before the Slavs came. They are known to have had a somewhat advanced culture, but were not as advanced as the Romans, who came to the Balkans around the 2nd century A.D. (wouldn't swear on the exact date). Their lands were turned into a Roman province, Iliria, which encompassed modern-day Albania and Kosovo. Around the 9th century the Ilirs were conquered by a branch of the Southern Slavs, the Serbs. The Albanian claims towards Kosovo (nowadays a Serbian province with predominantly Albanian population) spring from that period. If you have been following the international news, you know that the conflict led to the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, and has yet to be resolved.
For other Albanian names you can check the section on this page.