Bucur is the legendary Romanian

shepherd A shepherd or sheepherder is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. ''Shepherd'' derives from Old English ''sceaphierde (''sceap'' 'sheep' + ''hierde'' 'herder'). ''Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations, i ...

who is said to have founded

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

, giving it his name. While the legend about the shepherd is probably apocryphal, the name of the city ( ro, București) is actually quite likely derived from a person named Bucur, as the suffix '' -ești'' is used for settlements derived from personal names, usually of the owner of the land or of the founder, though it is more likely that Bucur was the noble who owned the land. There is an old small church named '' Biserica lui Bucur'' ("Bucur's Church") which, as the legend goes, was built by Bucur himself. However, this is not true, since the church appears to have been built at the beginning of the 18th century, and the oldest archeological remains found in the surrounding area were from the second half of the 16th century.Georgescu et al., p.76-77 The earliest reference to Bucur was written by the Franciscan friar Blasius Kleiner, who claimed that Bucur was both a shepherd and a

haiduc A hajduk ( hu, hajdúk, plural of ) is a type of irregular infantry found in Central and parts of Southeast Europe from the late 16th to mid 19th centuries. They have reputations ranging from bandits to freedom fighters depending on time, ...

. Another early reference is found in ''An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia'', an 1820 book published in London by the English consul in Bucharest, William Wilkinson. The earliest reference to Bucur's Church is from a geography manual written by Iosif Gentilie in 1835. As claimed by I. Fr. Sulzer in 1781, the name ''Bucur'' is probably related with Romanian ''bucurie'' ("joy"), ''bucuros'' ("joyful"), and ''a bucura'' ("to become joyful"), having a cognate in

Albanian Albanian may refer to: *Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular: **Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans **Albanian language **Albanian culture **Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...

, ''bukur'' ("beautiful"), and it is believed to be of Dacian origin.Ion I. Russu, Limba traco-dacilor, 1967, Editura Ştiințifică There are various other etymologies given by early scholars for the city name, including the one of Ottoman traveler

Evliya Çelebi Derviş Mehmed Zillî (25 March 1611 – 1682), known as Evliya Çelebi ( ota, اوليا چلبى), was an Ottoman explorer who travelled through the territory of the Ottoman Empire and neighboring lands over a period of forty years, recording ...

, who said Bucharest is named after a certain Ebu-Kariş, from the tribe of Beni-Kureiş, and that of an early 19th-century book published in Vienna, where it is assumed its name is derived from Bukovie, a beech forest.

Notes

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References

*Florian Georgescu et al. ''Istoria Oraşului București'', Muzeul de Istorie a Oraşului București, 1965 *Alexandru Rosetti. ''Istoria limbii române'', 2 vols., Bucharest, 1965–1969.

External links

Cetatea lui Bucur
History of Bucharest Shepherds Legendary Romanian people Romanian legends Place name etymologies Romanian folklore

See also

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