Kuriacou > Kyriacou > Cyriacus > Cyriax > Ciriack
As of this posting, our http://Cyriac-FHP.comhttp://Cyriac-FHP.com (Cyriac Family History Project) knows of only one major branch of the family that uses this spelling - see it at http://Ciriack.Cyriac-FHP.comhttp://Ciriack.Cyriac-FHP.com
Ciriack could be a variation the more ancient Cyriax spelling - Cyriax is the predominantly 'correct' spelling of the 'probably' most ancient spelling of the Greek name passing through Germany to Great Britain, Africa, the United States and elsewhere. This spelling seems to have been centered around the Erfurt area. (It's hypothesized that this spelling was pronounced originally with the X being the Greek Chi or hard K and now with the softer CKS or AX. A wild conjecture is that it may have been the
earliest usage of the Greek Chi or "X" in the German alphabet - with the family using it to proudly attest to their connections with the ancient (and illegal) Christianity that existed within the Roman Empire before it
became legal in the early 4th century.
The emmigration to Erfurt may have been from Rome and/or other parts of the Roman Empire in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries as a result of the FINAL GREAT PERSECUTIONSOF CHRISTIANS and the attempt to eliminate Christianity once and for all by Diocletian during his reign from 284
through 304 - in other words, the smarter members of the family got out while the getting was good and before theylost everything, including their lives -- this all conjecture, too.)
Go to http://www.Cyriac-FHP.comhttp://www.Cyriac-FHP.com to enter the Cyriac FamilyHistory Project portal - the gateway to hundreds of other web pages covering the several hundred variations of the family name appearing around the world.
The most ancient variation of the name found, so far, is:
KURIACO or KYRIACO (and KURIACOU or KYRIACOU)
The ancient Greek pronunciation for that spelling appears to have been
KU - RR - EE - AH - KOU
with the double RR being rolled as in Spanish. Our Wisconsin Ciriacks spelling is pronounced
SEER - EE - AX
The correct spelling for Ciriacks should be Cyriacks, the form being used by our 'known' cousins in Nebraska, Minnesota and New York - the pronunciation is the same although some in the Minnesota branch pronounce it
SEER - ICK or SEER - ICKS
Go to the http://Cyriac-FHP.comhttp://Cyriac-FHP.com web site to see more - you can spend a month there and still not read all there is to discover about our very large extended family.