Taras

The name Taras comes from Greek, from Taras, the ancient city on the heel of Italy that the Romans called Tarentum and Poles call Tarent. In myth the city took its name from Taras, a son of Poseidon, and the Polish gloss stays close to that ground: od miasta Taras, from a city.

Greek roots aside, the name belongs to Ukrainian life more than to any other. Taras Shevchenko, born a serf in 1814, became the poet who shaped how Ukrainian is written and read. Nikolai Gogol gave the world another Taras, the Cossack Taras Bulba. Two men, one name, both stubborn.

On a Polish class register Taras often marks a family with a border in it, a household where the name came west. It is short and hard-edged. The meaning printed beside it stays literal: od miasta Taras, tarent.