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I am wanting to find out information on my families surname. It is spelled vosilius but my great grandfather was called yonus wosilius but for reasons unknown he had his first name changed to John and changed the spelling of his surname wosilius to vosilius. I have looked online but a lot of websites say the meaning of the name is unknown both spellings. The only other information I could get from family members is that is it Lithuanian but that's all I know does Any one out there know anything about this surname. Thank you
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I just had a quick look at some Lithuanian surname sites.
Looks like the name is (commonly) spelt Vosylius in Lithuanian: https://lietuvai.lt/wiki/Vosylius_(reik%C5%A1m%C4%97s)
This site https://www.myheritage.lt/FP/genealogy-welcome.php?s=210490491 claims that it's basically a Lithuanianized form of the given name Vasiliy. Quote: "According to one of the versions, the Vosylius family originates from the Marijampolė area. In old documents the surname is written as Vasilius; by the way, there were also various distortions (Vasylius; Vosilius, even Vasiulis). It is likely that the origin of the surname is Russian, e.g. In "History of Lithuania" by A. Šapoka, Duke Vasilij of Moscow, who married Vytautas' daughter Sofija, is Lithuanianized as Vosylius."
Now, like I said, I only did a very superficial search, so I'm not sure how accurate or reliable this source is. Linguistically speaking, their claim does make sense, though.
As for the Wosilius spelling: I'd assume this might be a Polonization of the name. Bear in mind that Poland and Lithuania were once "united" in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Lithuanian_Commonwealth
Plus, Marijampolė borders Poland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijampol%C4%97
Are you sure his given name was spelt Yonus? Jonas is the most common Lithuanian form of John, but there is also Jonius (https://www.tevu-darzelis.lt/vaiku-vardai/jonius/). In any case, it looks like he simply Anglicized his given name.
(Edit: Typo)
Looks like the name is (commonly) spelt Vosylius in Lithuanian: https://lietuvai.lt/wiki/Vosylius_(reik%C5%A1m%C4%97s)
This site https://www.myheritage.lt/FP/genealogy-welcome.php?s=210490491 claims that it's basically a Lithuanianized form of the given name Vasiliy. Quote: "According to one of the versions, the Vosylius family originates from the Marijampolė area. In old documents the surname is written as Vasilius; by the way, there were also various distortions (Vasylius; Vosilius, even Vasiulis). It is likely that the origin of the surname is Russian, e.g. In "History of Lithuania" by A. Šapoka, Duke Vasilij of Moscow, who married Vytautas' daughter Sofija, is Lithuanianized as Vosylius."
Now, like I said, I only did a very superficial search, so I'm not sure how accurate or reliable this source is. Linguistically speaking, their claim does make sense, though.
As for the Wosilius spelling: I'd assume this might be a Polonization of the name. Bear in mind that Poland and Lithuania were once "united" in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Lithuanian_Commonwealth
Plus, Marijampolė borders Poland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijampol%C4%97
Are you sure his given name was spelt Yonus? Jonas is the most common Lithuanian form of John, but there is also Jonius (https://www.tevu-darzelis.lt/vaiku-vardai/jonius/). In any case, it looks like he simply Anglicized his given name.
(Edit: Typo)
This message was edited 9/29/2022, 8:54 AM
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Wow thank you so much this is so interesting I can't believe you got so much information thank you so much. I seemed to have spelled my great grandfather's name wrong the first time. Sorry it is actually Yonas not Yonus. This has been super helpful and very interesting to read about my family's origins.
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I’m not sure if this is helpful, but vosilius means “faster” in Latin.
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Can you give me sources and tell me how you know this I want to find out and be able to tell my son one day. When I googled the Latin word for faster a different word came up the word that came up was citius
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I’m not sure it’s entirely accurate, it was on Google Translate detect language, but it’s the closest I could find… https://translate.google.co.uk/?sl=auto&tl=en&text=vosilius&op=translate
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