Karas Family History
Karas Name Meaning
Polish (Karaś) and Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic; also Karaś); Ukrainian Belorussian Czech Slovak Croatian Slovenian and Sorbian: from Polish karaś other Slavic karas ‘crucian carp (Carassius vulgaris)’ hence a metonymic occupational name for a carp fisher or possibly a nickname for someone thought to resemble the fish. As a Jewish name it is mainly artificial. Compare Caras Karasch and Karras . Hungarian: topographic name for someone living by the Karas river a tributary of the Danube named with Turkish kara ‘black’. Americanized form of Hungarian Kárász a cognate of 1 above. Greek: nickname for a dark-haired or gloomy individual from karas ‘black dark’ (and by extension ‘moody’) from Turkish kara ‘black’. It can also be a shortened form of any of numerous compound surnames such as Karageorgiou (patronymic from a nickname meaning ‘Black George’) and Karagiannis ‘Black John’. Compare Caras Kara and Karras . German: from a short form of the personal name Zacharias or of Greek Makarios ‘blessed’ a Christian saint's name.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022
