Simonaitis

Recorded in over one hundred surname spellings throughout Europe, this interesting surname is of pre- written historical origins. It ultimately derives from the Hebrew personal name "Shimeon", meaning "one who harkens". The surname forms include Simon (English), Simeon, Siomon, Schimon (Jewish), Simeoni (Italian), Si, Sias, and Simao (German and Polish), Schimann (Czech), Ziemen (Prussian), and the national diminutives and patronymics such as Simonson, (England), Simonett (France), Simonetti (Italy), Siaspinski and Siaskowski (Polish-German) Ziemke (German), Ziemecki (Slavonic, and many, others. In England the name generally takes the form of Simon, partly as a result of association with the pre-existing Greek byname "Simon", from "simos", meaning snub-nosed. The first European recording of "Simon" as a personal name is probably that of "Simonus", a monk, in the 1134 Register of St. Benets, Holme Abbey, Norfolk, England. The surname first appears in the latter half of the 13th Century (see below), Pieter Ziemke, of Hamburg, Germany, in 1289, and William Simon in the 1291 Calendar of Letter Books of the City of London. Other recordings from medieval times include Ernest Symers of Bremen, Germany, in 1262, and John Simon in the Subsidy Rolls of County Sussex, England, in 1296. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of John Simond, which was dated 1273, in the "Hundred Rolls of Oxfordshire", during the reign of King Edward 1, known as "The Hammer of the Scots", 1272 - 1307. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.