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What kind of name is Sisko?

indolover

Fleet Captain
Call it an odd question, but most African-Americans (for obvious historical reasons) tend to have British-origin surnames. So Jesse Jackson, or Kayne West, or even Avery Brooks himself.

But Sisko is not Anglo-Saxon or Celtic. So is it a common name in the US? Where does it originate from?
 
Sisko is actually still anglosaxon in origin. It's a slimmed version of the surnamed "Fransisko" carrying the meaning "Chef" or cook.
 
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Nice. Since cooking runs in the family, that's probably what the writers were thinking all along. Of course, James T. Kirk was probably named for Captain James Cook...which makes me wonder if Picard has a similar meaning too....
 
If you read between the etymology of Picard it can be interrupted as "Peace Keeper". It's more literal translation tends to be more along the lines of "pick apart" as if to investigate or find deeper meaning behind it. One could probably also interrupt the name to have a broader "Negotiator" type meaning too, so it does track with his personality.

Kirk is a little weirder one. It translates directly into "Church" from Norse or Danish but often carries the meaning "Holy one". I'm not quiet sure how to interrupt that one. It seems more like that name was picked almost exclusively because it sounded "tough".

Since you're going down names of captains, I suppose I'll toss out Janeway's name largely translates into "Pathfinder" or "Seeker".

Riker's last name doesn't have a specific etymology track. The name Riker was likely derived from something such as possibly Reick or Rickert. Depending what path you want to follow the etymology on his last name, it could have a lot of meanings, none which pop out at me as a backlog characterization for someone. Reick for instance tracks being something of hermit while Rickert tracks to being something related to a low class soldier.
 
Did anyone else read this thread title and think of Fletch

Mr. Boyd: What kind of a name is Poon anyway?
Fletch: Comanche Indian.
 
Sisko is actually still anglosaxon in origin. It's a slimmed version of the surnamed "Fransisko" carrying the meaning "Chef" or cook.
Wouldn't Fransisko/cisco be of Latin/Romance origin? Given Sisko's Louisiana roots I wouldn't find its odd his name was derived from Spanish or French.
 
Or even Louisiana Creole, even, which covers a pretty broad range of ethnicities from European to African.
 
Ancestry.com calls Captain Sisko fat! The nerve!

Sisko Name Meaning
Slovenian (Šiško): reduced form of the personal name Fransisko (see Francis).Greek (Siskos): nickname from Turkish sisko ‘fat’, ‘overweight’.
Too much jambalaya with tube grubs?

I always assumed it was a variation on Sisco - a name I've actually heard of in the real world, unlike Sisko - and given that he's from Nawlins, that points to French or Spanish origins. I googled around, and one site says it's Spanish, another site says it's Italian. Sumthin like that.

Ancestry.com confirms that Sisco is lots more common than Sisko, but weirdly both names are clustered around Ohio and Pennsylvania, not Louisiana. Interesting site.
 
Given that it's the 24th century, I don't think we can make many assumptions about where the name came from. I'm betting that most humans have surnames that are simply one artifact and indicator of extremely diverse backgrounds by 21-century standards.
 
I briefly looked through The Making of Deep Space Nine to see if it mentions where the name came from; as far as I can tell it doesn't, although it does have a production note from Jeri Taylor, who thought fans might call him "the Sisko kid".
 
No its a Germanic derivation. Transliteration means: I will thoroughly kick your ass, MOFO
 
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