Serres - Names

Names

The Greek historian Herodotus mentions the city as Siris (Σίρις) in the 5th century BC. Theopompus refers to the city as Sirra (Σίρρα). Later, it is mentioned as Sirae, in the plural, by the Roman historian Livy. Since then the name of the city has remained plural and by the 5th century AD it was already in the contemporary form as Serrae (Σέρραι). It is known as Ser in both Macedonian Slavic and Serbian, while in Bulgarian it is known as Syar (Сяр) or Ser (Сер), which can be deduced from the spelling before 1947 as 'Сѣръ', thus capturing both the 'ya' and 'e' sounds. The Katharevousa form for the name of the city was Sérrai (Σέρραι). It was known as Serez or Siroz in Turkish. In the local Greek dialect, the city is known as "Ta Serras" (Tα Σέρρας), which is actually a corruption of the plural Accusative "Tas Serras" (Τάς Σέρρας) of the archaic form "Ai Serrai" (Αι Σέρραι). Τhe oldest mention of this form is attested in a document of the Monastery of Docheiarion in Mount Athos from 1383, while there are many other such references in documents from the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.