Common Gypsy names You may have Romani, Traveller or Gypsy ancestry if your family tree includes common Romani or Gypsy surnames such as Boss, Boswell, Buckland, Chilcott, Codona, Cooper, Doe, Lee, Gray (or Grey), Harrison, Hearn, Heron, Hodgkins, Holland, Lee, Lovell, Loveridge, Scamp, Smith, Wood and Young.
Typical Romany surname: common ones include Cooper, Smith, Lee, Boswell, Lovell, Doe, Wood, Young and Heron. But take a look at our Famous Families books for many more examples.
Gypsy leaders. The Boswells were for centuries one of England's largest and most important Gypsy families. The Boswell clan were a large extended family of Travellers, and in old Nottinghamshire dialect the word bos'll was used as a term for Travellers and Roma in general.
The Romani people, also referred to as Roma, Sinti or Kale, depending on the sub-group, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group which primarily lives in Europe.
“Roma” is the word (ethnonym) that the Roma use to describe themselves: it is the term for the members of that specific people and it is Romani for “man”. “Gypsy” is a derogatory, disparaging term – for many an insult — used by the majority population to define the Roma people.
Common Gypsy names
You may have Romani, Traveller or Gypsy ancestry if your family tree includes common Romani or Gypsy surnames such as Boss, Boswell, Buckland, Chilcott, Codona, Cooper, Doe, Lee, Gray (or Grey), Harrison, Hearn, Heron, Hodgkins, Holland, Lee, Lovell, Loveridge, Scamp, Smith, Wood and Young.
In general, Romani people carry approximately 65–80% West Eurasian (European, Middle Eastern and Caucasian) ancestry, estimated to have been acquired by extensive gene flow between the 13th and 16th centuries [4,7].
Romani is a rich family of languages with an Indo-Aryan root. Romani is the only Indio-Aryan language that has been spoken exclusively in Europe since the Middle Ages and whose vocabulary and grammar are related to Sanskrit.
Heterogeneity between countries has become apparent and has led to the conclusion that the European Roma are composed of two different populations, characterised respectively by a high and a low frequency of blood group B [23], or defined as East and West European Roma, with the former closely related to Indian ...
Romani communities are dispersed across all Australian states, with significant populations located in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia. Around 14,000 Roma live in Western Australia, mostly immigrants from Macedonia and their children. Nearly all lead sedentary lives.
The Roma do not follow a single faith, but are Catholic Manouche, Mercheros, and Sinti; Muslim Ashkali and Romanlar; Pentecostal Kalderash and Lovari; Protestant Travellers; Anglican Gypsies; and Baptist Roma.
Nine disorders are caused by “novel private” Roma mutations, including forms of glaucoma, polycystic kidney disease, limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, and a few neuropathies.
A full genome autosomal DNA study on 186 Roma samples from Europe in 2019 found that modern Roma people are characterized by a common south Asian origin and a complex admixture from Balkan, Middle East, and Caucasus-derived ancestries.
There is no king or queen. Traveller families often have someone that makes the main decisions that will affect the family as a whole, and is usually a patriarch or matriarch of the family. This is often the same for Romany people, who have no tradition of royalty.
Romanians have one, two or more given names, e.g. Ana Cristina Maria (three given names), all being chosen by the child's parents. One of them, usually the first, is used in daily life while the others are solely for official documents, such as birth, marriage, or death certificates.
"Most Roma have brown hair and eyes, but there are many blond Roma with blue eyes," said Juan Gamella, a social anthropologist at the University of Granada in Spain.
Although previous studies of Roma IQ have been conducted — all on children, mostly on small samples of unknown representativeness — they do consistently show an IQ range of from 70 to 83 (Bakalar, 2004; Raven, Court, & Raven, 1995; Save the Children, 2001).
Still, UNESCO classifies the language as “Definitely Endangered.” Very few children get the opportunity to learn in Romani-language classes in school, and 3.5 million doesn't sound like a lot when you realize there are 12 to 14 million Roma people in the world.
Many Roma refer to themselves by one generic name, Rom (meaning “man” or “husband”), and to all non-Roma by the term Gadje (also spelled Gadze or Gaje; a term with a pejorative connotation meaning “bumpkin,” “yokel,” or “barbarian”).
Fortunately, it's now easier than ever to find out. Companies like Sequencing.com offer convenient DNA testing kits that can tell you exactly what ethnicities you are whether you're Hungarian Roma, European Roma or English Roma.
True Romany Gypsies were regarded as being of the pure “black blood” and the word “black” was regularly used as a compliment, particularly in people's names, meaning a gypsy of the purest type.
In comparison with other studied groups from Ukraine (mainly Ukrainians but also other minorities) Djaczenko found that Gypsies have the lowest cephalic index, the widest nose, darkest pigmentation, and the most dense beard.