View Message

-escu is the favoured Rumanian surname ending, which I take to mean "child of" or "descendant of.
Ilie = Elias
Lupu = Wolf (forename or nickname?)
Popa = "parish priest", expected to marry and have families in the Orthodox church. Hence names of this sort are common in countries where the Orthodox church dominated religious life: Popov, Popovic, Papadopoulos, etc.
Ceaus - the most interesting; the word is Turkish for some sort of petty official. It's said that Nicolae C's ancestor was a tax-collector for the Ottomans.
Serban - not known, I suspect it's an old forename. The Vlachs of the Balkans have a similar forename, Sarban (pronounced Sharban).