Karas Family History

Polish (Karaś) and Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic; also Karaś); Ukrainian, Belorussian, Czech, Slovak, Croatian, Slovenian, and Sorbian: from Polish karaś and 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.