The Cyriax name, appearing around the Gotha-Erfurt-Weimar area of south-central Germany, may represent the oldest form of the name in Germany.  The Erfurt family represented in the tree shown here evidences the earliest graduates of higher education.  Having the resources needed to attend institutions of higher learning implies that this family continued a long line of males passing along familial resources from one generation to the next.  The system of primogeniture begun by the Romans, where the eldest son inherited everything, preordained that that name and those resources would continue so long as there were 'eldest sons' alive to continue the cycle.

Most of the resources being passed along in disparate branches of the family involve the land and buildings associated with farming or the highly technical skills and tangible assets involved with a specific trade.  In almost every case, the spelling of the name remains unchanged so long as the 'occupation' and presumably the wealth is being passed along.  Higher education appears to be the valuable item passed along and thereby maintaining the Cyriax spelling in this branch of the family.  

Something else to consider is how the X got there in the first place.  Ben Ciriacks always considered it to be another among the various linquistic idiocyncracies devolving from practices within one or another region of Germany.  But, considering the ancient Christian connections our family may have had BEFORE EMIGRATING to Germany (from Italy and other parts of the Roman Empire), the X may have served the dual purpose of satisfying local linquistic norms AND self-identifying the family (to insiders) as Christian - ancient Christian.

After all, the 3rd century Christian catacombs contained many sly representations of the cross, in the form of anchors, shovels, etc. that seemed to have signified the trade of the decedent as well as their connection to Christianity while it was still illegal.  Many representations involved the , or cross, in some way and eventually evolved into the purely Christian CHI-RHO monogram.  It's possible that, if it's true that our family did migrate from Rome just before the FINAL Great Persecution destroyed everything having to do with Christianity, they immediately took hold of the X in Cyriax, instead of the alternative Cyriacus or Kyriacus spelling to maintain that link to Christianity. (When was the X introduced into the German alphabet?!)

CHI-RHO monogram [toggle-me]