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 "Cyriax of Fericano had written that
defensibility was to be preferred to concealment by warriors, ..." is
part of the reference found at that web site regarding The Vengeance of
Masks, Chapter 33.
guestbook Home (Secular & Christian) Website link/location/URL: http://Cyriax.Cyriac-FHP.com or
www.Cyriac-FHP.com/cyriax.htm
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?!)