George (given name)

George is a widespread given name, derived from Greek Γεώργιος (Geōrgios)) through the Latin Georgius. While it is commonly a masculine name, in English it is also sometimes given as a feminine name. Its popularity is due to the widespread veneration of the Christian military saint Saint George (George of Lydda c. 275/281–303).

The name derives in origin from the name of Zeus Georgos, worshipped as a god of crops.

Origins

The noun γεωργός geōrgos "husbandman, farmer" and the verb γεωργέω geōrgeō "to be a farmer; to plow, till, cultivate" is found in the classical language (Plato, Aristophanes). The word geōrgos "husbandman, farmer" was one of Zeus's epithets in Athens: Ζεύς Γεωργός (Zeus Geōrgos), the god of crops and harvest.Aelius Herodianus in the 2nd century lists Georgios alongside Demetrios and Ammonios as a theophoric name derived from the theonym by suffixing -ios. It is likely that the historical Saint George (Georgios) was born in Lydda, Palestine in c. 280 as the son of a Greek Christian nobleman from Cappadocia. After his martyrdom in 303, the name Georgios soon became used more widely among Christians in the Eastern Empire.

George, son of David VII of Georgia

George, Giorgi, (Georgian: გიორგი) (1250–1268) was the eldest son of David VII Ulu, a Bagratid king of Georgia, by whom he was designated as heir-apparent to the throne. In the early 1260s, he was held as a hostage at the Mongol Ilkhan court of Hulagu Khan and later served with his father in the Mongol military ranks. He died at the age of 18 in 1268, preceding his father by two years.

Biography

George was born in 1250 to King David VII and the Alan woman Altun, whom the king took as a temporary wife because he had no children by his queen Jigda-Khatun and whom he agreed to dismiss after the birth of an heir. The marriage was, in fact, repudiated after the birth of the second child, a daughter, Tamar. George was adopted by Jigda-Khatun, who died shortly afterwards. George, along with his father, step-mother, and the uncle David VI Narin, is mentioned in a church inscription from Abelia in the south of Georgia.

George (eparch)

George (Greek: Γεώργιος) was a Byzantine governor in Africa (modern Tunisia and eastern Algeria) from ca. 632/634 to ca. 642.

Very little is known about his life. According to John Moschos, he came from Apameia in Syria. He is recorded as "eparch of Carthage", which would imply that he was a praetorian prefect. He was a supporter of the prominent theologian Maximus the Confessor, and was, according to the Doctrina Jacobi, responsible for the forced conversion of the African Jews to Christianity, as decreed by the Emperor Heraclius. The latter fact indicates that his tenure in Africa began in 634 at the latest, and possibly as early as 632.

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