Etymology Explorer › English

Where does “Popescu” come from?

Popescu comes from Romanian -escu, a diminutive suffix from Old Church Slavonic попъ meaning "priest," ultimately derived from Latin -iscus and Proto-Indo-European -iskos.

Ancestry of “Popescu”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1RomanianPopescu—
2Romanian-escusuffix forming many Romanian surnames, e.g....
3Romanian-esc-esque, -ish; Used with a stem to form the...
4Latin-ēscō—
5Proto-Italic*-ēskō—
Every word from Proto-Italic *-ēskō →