Etymology
The name of Bucureşti has an uncertain origin: tradition connects the founding of Bucharest with the name of Bucur who was either a prince, an outlaw, a fisherman, a shepherd, or a hunter, according to different legends. In Romanian the word stem bucur means 'joy', ("beautiful") and it is believed to be of Dacian origin.
There are other etymologies given by early scholars, including the one of Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi, who said that Bucharest is named after a certain "Ebu-Kariş", from the tribe of "Beni-Kureiş". In 1781, Franz Sulzer claimed that it's related to bucurie (joy), bucuros (joyful), a bucura (to become joyful), while an early 19th century book published in Vienna assumed its name is derived from "Bukovie", a beech forest.
The official city name in full is the "Municipality of Bucharest" (Romanian: Municipiul București).
A native or resident of Bucharest is called a "Bucharester" (Romanian: bucureștean).
Read more about this topic: Bucharest
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of style. But while stylederiving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tabletssuggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. Taste: The Story of an Idea, Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (16881744)