Non Greek surnames - eeta or yiota?

Question

This has puzzled me for some time when I spell my surname Morris in a Greek context. When we lived in Cyprus and applied for a Cypriot ID card we completed the application in English and this was translated by the clerk into Greek  as it sounded to her so......on one document it was spelt as Μόρρις and later on others as either Μόρρης but sometimes times as Μόρης.

When I asked why in Kerkyra on holiday recently I was told that as it was only translated by sound and it was not a Greek name that it did not matter - putting two  ρ  makes no difference and the  η  is preferable as the penultimate letter. Can understand this as when I was deciding how to spell in Greek the great Greek writer  'Καζαντάκης' I googled this and similar Greek names and there were always thousands of η compared to a few spelt with  ι

So I think you will now tell me I have been spelling my name wrongly as  Μόρρης - or does it not matter as a Greek speaker would understand it as Morris?

Thank you so much

Ιάκοβος

Answer 1

Γεια σου Ιακοβε

It is not really important how you will spell your surname, since it is not a Greek one.

You can apply the Greek masculine ending -ης and spell it as "Μόρης" οr "Μόρρης". In this case you will change the ending according to the Greek inlination of nouns.

Nominative: o κύριος Μόρης

Genitive: του κυρίου Μόρη

Accusative: τον κύριο Μόρη

Vocative: κύριε Μόρη

An other option is just to write it phonetically in Greek: "Μόρις" or "Μόρρις"

In this case, you do not have to follow the Greek inclination.

Nominative: ο κύριος Μόρις

Genitive: του κυρίου Μόρις

Accusative: τον κύριο Μόρις

Vocative: κύριε Μόρις

It is up to you which one you will choose. If you live in Greece permanently, you speak fluently and you feel Greek, you can choose the Greek version.

Comments

Thank you so much for this answer - I have taken all this onboard
Ιάκοωος