100 Romanian Surnames and Their Meanings
Romanian is a Romance language stranded in a Slavic neighborhood, and its surnames show it. The grammar is Latin — the suffix -escu descends from the Latin adjectival ending -iscus and means "of the household of" — but the words it attaches to are drawn from Slavic, Hungarian, Turkish, Greek and German as readily as from Latin. Popescu, the commonest Romanian surname of all, is a Latin ending on a Slavic word: popa, a priest. Beneath that sits a second suffix, -eanu, that means "from" a place, and it is the fastest way to read a Romanian name at a glance. To sort out how the relatives carrying that name connect to each other, use the cousin calculator.
What does your Romanian surname end in? Tap the closest match.
Tap an option above. Two suffixes, -escu and -eanu, unlock most Romanian surnames.
A Latin language with three layers on top
Romanian surnames record four cultures at once, and the layers are easy to separate.
The Latin core supplies the grammar. The suffixes -escu, -eanu and -aru are all inherited Romance endings, and words like fier (iron), câmp (field) and lup (wolf) come straight from Latin.
The Slavic layer supplies vocabulary and given names. Popa (priest), dascăl by way of Greek, and personal names such as Radu, Vlad, Bogdan, Dragomir, Stan and Mircea are all Slavic in origin.
The Turkish layer is mostly occupational. Centuries of Ottoman suzerainty left ciobanul the shepherd (from çoban), dulgher the carpenter (dülger), băcan the grocer (bakkal), boiangiu the dyer (boyacı) and ceauș, an officer or herald, which gave the surname Ceaușescu.
The Hungarian and German layers belong to Transylvania. The region was under Hungarian and later Habsburg administration for centuries, and Saxon settlers arrived from the 1100s. Nagy, Kovács and Szabó sit beside Schuster, Roth and Müller in the same villages.
Greek arrived with the Phanariot princes who governed Wallachia and Moldavia in the 1700s, leaving names such as Ghica and Cantacuzino among the boyar class.
The German-origin names follow the same logic as the ones described in German surnames — trades, colors and given names.
What -escu and -eanu actually mean
Two suffixes cover the majority of Romanian surnames, and they mean quite different things.
-escu means "of, belonging to, of the household of". Ionescu is Ion's, Popescu is the priest's, Dumitrescu is Dumitru's. It functions as a patronymic, in the same family of devices covered in patronymic surnames.
It is not exclusively about fathers. The ending could attach to a master, a landholder or a household head as well as a father, which is one reason Popescu is so extraordinarily common — Orthodox parish priests married and had large families, and their households were large too.
-eanu and -ianu mean "from". Munteanu is a man of the mountains or of Muntenia; Moldoveanu is a Moldavian; Ardeleanu is a Transylvanian, from Ardeal; Olteanu is from Oltenia beyond the river Olt.
-aru and -ariu mark a trade, from the Latin agent suffix that also gave English -er: Rotaru the wheelwright, Olaru the potter, Cojocaru the furrier, Morariu the miller.
Bare names are also common. Popa, Radu, Stan, Lupu and Ursu are surnames with no suffix at all — the given name or nickname simply froze as it stood.
The -escu form spread with the state. It was already in use, but nineteenth-century registration made it the prestige pattern, and many families regularised into it.
When Romanian surnames were fixed
The dates matter, and so does the alphabet.
Before the 1800s, most people had one name plus a description. A man was Ion of Radu, Ion the priest's, or Ion from Câmpulung, and the description was not reliably inherited.
Boyar families carried hereditary names much earlier, often from estates, in the same way as landholding families elsewhere in Europe.
Civil registration in the United Principalities from 1865 required fixed family names, and this is the moment most Romanian surnames became hereditary in the modern sense.
Transylvania followed a different timetable. Under Hungarian administration, registration came through the churches and the county authorities, and Romanian names were frequently written in Hungarian orthography — Popa as Popa, but Ioan as János, and surnames Magyarised outright in some periods.
Romanian was written in Cyrillic until the 1860s. Church registers, land documents and older civil papers use the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet or Church Slavonic, and the transition alphabet of the 1830s to 1860s mixes both.
That alphabet change is a live research problem, not a historical curiosity, and it is the main reason a family's name appears in incompatible spellings across a single lifetime.
Romanian surnames ending in -escu
The classic Romanian pattern: a given name, or a household head's title, plus the Latin suffix.
| Surname | Meaning or origin |
|---|---|
| Popescu | of the popa, the priest; the commonest Romanian surname |
| Ionescu | of Ion, the Romanian John |
| Georgescu | of George |
| Constantinescu | of Constantin |
| Dumitrescu | of Dumitru, Demetrius |
| Stănescu | of Stan |
| Marinescu | of Marin, from Latin marinus |
| Petrescu | of Petre, Peter |
| Nicolescu | of Nicolae, Nicholas |
| Vasilescu | of Vasile, Basil |
| Rădulescu | of Radu |
| Florescu | of Florea, from floare, a flower |
| Iliescu | of Ilie, Elijah |
| Alexandrescu | of Alexandru |
| Grigorescu | of Grigore, Gregory |
| Teodorescu | of Teodor, Theodore |
| Mihăilescu | of Mihai, Michael |
| Andreescu | of Andrei, Andrew |
| Antonescu | of Anton, Anthony |
| Bărbulescu | of Bărbu |
| Diaconescu | of the diacon, the deacon |
| Preotescu | of the preot, the priest |
| Șerbănescu | of Șerban |
| Dinescu | of Dinu, a short form of Constantin |
| Cristescu | of Cristea, from Christ |
Romanian surnames from places and peoples
Where a family came from, or which language its neighbors thought it spoke.
| Surname | Meaning or origin |
|---|---|
| Munteanu | of the mountains, or from Muntenia |
| Moldoveanu | a Moldavian |
| Ardeleanu | a Transylvanian, from Ardeal |
| Olteanu | from Oltenia, beyond the river Olt |
| Craioveanu | from the city of Craiova |
| Brașoveanu | from Brașov |
| Suceveanu | from Suceava |
| Gălățeanu | from Galați |
| Codreanu | from codru, deep forest |
| Câmpeanu | from câmp, an open field or plain |
| Pădureanu | from pădure, woodland |
| Rusu | the Russian or Ruthenian |
| Ungureanu | the Hungarian; often a Romanian from Transylvania |
| Sârbu | the Serb |
| Grecu | the Greek |
| Turcu | the Turk |
| Neamțu | the German |
| Tătaru | the Tatar |
| Leahu | the Pole, from Slavic Lyakh |
| Cazacu | the Cossack |
Romanian occupational surnames
Trades, with the -aru and -ariu ending or with none at all.
| Surname | Meaning or origin |
|---|---|
| Rotaru | wheelwright, from roată, a wheel |
| Fieraru | blacksmith, from fier, iron |
| Olaru | potter, from oală, a pot |
| Morariu | miller, from moară, a mill |
| Ciobanu | shepherd, from the Turkic çoban |
| Croitoru | tailor |
| Cizmaru | bootmaker, from cizmă, a boot |
| Pescaru | fisherman, from pește, fish |
| Butnaru | cooper, from German Büttner by way of Slavic |
| Zidaru | mason, from zid, a wall |
| Cojocaru | furrier, maker of the sheepskin cojoc |
| Dulgheru | carpenter, from Turkish dülger |
| Popa | the priest, from Slavic popŭ |
| Diaconu | the deacon |
| Dascălu | the schoolmaster, from Greek didaskalos |
| Văcaru | cowherd, from vacă, a cow |
| Blănaru | furrier, from blană, fur |
| Băcanu | grocer, from Turkish bakkal |
| Ceaușescu | of the ceauș, an officer or herald, from Turkish çavuș |
| Boiangiu | dyer, from Turkish boyacı |
Given names and nickname surnames
Old personal names and plain descriptions that froze as surnames without any suffix.
| Surname | Meaning or origin |
|---|---|
| Radu | Slavic, from rad, glad or willing |
| Vlad | Slavic, from vlad, to rule; short for Vladislav |
| Bogdan | Slavic, given by God |
| Dragomir | Slavic, dear + peace |
| Stan | Slavic, from a root meaning to stand firm |
| Mircea | Slavic, from mir, peace |
| Stoica | Slavic, steadfast, one who stands |
| Nistor | from the Greek name Nestor |
| Sandu | a short form of Alexandru |
| Barbu | from barbă, a beard |
| Lupu | wolf, from Latin lupus |
| Ursu | bear, from Latin ursus |
| Cerbu | stag, from Latin cervus |
| Vulpe | fox |
| Albu | white or fair, from Latin albus |
| Negru | black or dark |
| Roșu | red, usually red-haired |
| Bălan | fair-haired, blond |
| Surdu | deaf |
| Micu | small |
Hungarian, German and Greek surnames in Romania
Names that are fully Romanian in use, and entirely foreign in origin.
| Surname | Meaning or origin |
|---|---|
| Nagy | Hungarian, big or tall |
| Kovács | Hungarian, smith |
| Szabó | Hungarian, tailor |
| Varga | Hungarian, cobbler or leatherworker |
| Tóth | Hungarian, a Slovak or Slav |
| Molnár | Hungarian, miller |
| Fekete | Hungarian, black |
| Balogh | Hungarian, left-handed |
| Kiss | Hungarian, small |
| Schuster | German, shoemaker |
| Müller | German, miller |
| Roth | German, red or red-haired |
| Wagner | German, cartwright |
| Ghica | a Phanariot princely family name, of Albanian origin |
| Cantacuzino | a Byzantine Greek family name, Phanariot in Romania |
Spelling, diacritics and the Cyrillic problem
Romanian names change shape more than most, for reasons that are entirely mechanical.
Older records are in Cyrillic. A name written in the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet before the 1860s has to be transliterated into Latin script, and different archivists and indexers do it differently.
Romanian diacritics vanish abroad. ă, â, î, ș and ț become a, a, i, s and t, so Ceaușescu becomes Ceausescu, Neamțu becomes Neamtu, Bălan becomes Balan.
The î and â rule changed twice in the twentieth century. Words spelled with î in one era are spelled with â in another, so Râmnicu and Rîmnicu, Brâncuși and Brîncuși, are the same.
Transylvanian records may be in Hungarian or German. One family can appear as Popa in a Romanian register, Pópa in a Hungarian one and Popp in a German one, within a few years.
United States records simplify aggressively. Ionescu becomes Ionesco or Jonescu; Gheorghe becomes George; Dumitru becomes Demeter or Jim.
Search the stem with wildcards and accept every variant — the general approach described in surname spelling variations.
What a Romanian surname can and cannot prove
Informative about language and trade, and much weaker on family.
Popescu proves nothing about descent from a priest. The name attached to entire households, and Orthodox clergy were numerous and married, so it was coined independently thousands of times.
An -eanu name is genuinely useful. It points at a place or a region, and place is the strongest lead a Romanian surname can offer. Munteanu, Olteanu and Ardeleanu narrow a search in a way that Popescu never will.
A Hungarian or German surname does not fix nationality. Families have carried Hungarian and Saxon names in Romania for centuries, and Romanian names were Magyarised and Germanised in various administrations; the name records paperwork, not identity.
Occupational names describe a job, not a lineage — the wider point made in occupational surnames.
No coat of arms belongs to a surname. Arms in Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania were granted to individuals and to particular boyar or noble families, never to everyone sharing a name. Any site selling a "Romanian family crest" against your surname is selling someone else's grant. Design your own family coat of arms instead.
Use the name as a starting lead and prove the line from records, the method laid out in how to find your last name's origin.
FAQ
What does -escu mean at the end of a Romanian name?
It means "of" or "belonging to the household of", and it descends from the Latin adjectival ending -iscus. Ionescu is Ion's, Georgescu is George's, Popescu is the priest's. It works as a patronymic but could also attach to a master or a household head.
Why is Popescu so common in Romania?
Because popa means priest, Orthodox parish clergy married and had large households, and there was a priest in every village. The name was formed independently in thousands of places, which makes it the commonest Romanian surname and one of the least useful for identifying a family.
What is the difference between -escu and -eanu?
-escu marks a person: whose household you belonged to. -eanu marks a place: where you or your family came from. Munteanu, Moldoveanu, Ardeleanu and Olteanu are all regional, and they narrow a search far more effectively than an -escu name does.
Why are Hungarian and German surnames common in Romania?
Because Transylvania was under Hungarian and Habsburg administration for centuries, and Saxon settlers were invited from the 1100s. Nagy, Kovács, Szabó, Schuster and Roth have been local surnames there for many generations, and their bearers are frequently Romanian citizens with deep local roots.
Why does my ancestor's name look different in every record?
Usually because of the alphabet. Romanian was written in Cyrillic until the 1860s, so early entries have been transliterated, often inconsistently. Add lost diacritics, Hungarian or German spellings in Transylvania, and simplification abroad, and four spellings for one family is normal.
Do Romanian surnames have Turkish origins?
Some do, mostly occupational. Ciobanu comes from the Turkic çoban, a shepherd; dulgher, a carpenter, from dülger; băcan, a grocer, from bakkal; and ceauș, an officer or herald, from çavuș, which gave the surname Ceaușescu.
Reading a Romanian surname properly
Look at the ending before anything else. An -escu tells you whose household an ancestor belonged to and little more, because the commonest of them were coined thousands of times over. An -eanu tells you a place, which is the single most useful thing a Romanian surname can give you, and it is worth building a search around. An -aru tells you a trade. Everything else — a bare Slavic given name, a Hungarian or Saxon name, a Greek boyar name — tells you which of Romania's overlapping cultures a family was living inside when its name was written down. Then go to the registers, expect the alphabet to change under you around the 1860s, and use the cousin calculator to place each relative as the tree fills out.
