Delis Family History

Greek: nickname from Turkish deli ‘mad brave’ or a shortened form of any of the surnames formed with Deli- as a prefix e.g. Deligiannis ‘mad John’ or Delidimitris ‘mad Demetrios’. The term delis referred originally to a cavalryman of the Ottoman Turkish army therefore its literal meaning ‘mad’ is to be taken as a characteristic of a soldier (compare Serbian and Bosniak Delic). Compare also Dellis.

Galician (De Lis): habitational name for someone from Lis in Pontevedra province Galicia (Spain). Compare Lis.

Spanish (Andalusia): probably a variant of 2 with fused preposition de ‘from’. Compare Deliz.

Walloon and possibly also northern French: variant of Dellis.