08 Where did the word "vampire" come from?
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This article is from the Vampires FAQ, by BJ Kuehl bj@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu with numerous contributions by others.
08 Where did the word "vampire" come from?
Most etymologists (persons who study the origins of words) agree that
"vampire" is from the Slavic "vampir" or "vampyr" and first appeared in
the 1600s in the area of what is now Bulgaria and Yugoslavia on the
Balkan peninsula. However, attempts to trace back the origin of the
Slavic "vampir" are still under dispute. The theory currently favored is
that "vampir" came from "upir", which first appeared in print in a 1047
CE East Slavic (Old Russian) manuscript in which a Novrogordian prince
is referred to as "Upir Lichy" (Wicked Vampire). Tracing the source of
"upir" and its Slavic cognates (i.e., upior, obyrbi, upirbi, obiri) is
even more controversial, fraught with many theories but little documented
evidence.
For example, Franz Miklosich, a late 19th century linguist, suggested
that "upir" is derived from "uber", a Turkish word for "witch". Andre
Vaillant suggests just the opposite--that the Northern Turkish word
"uber" is derived from the Slavic "upir". More recently, Jan Perkowski,
who has done a great deal of research on the vampires of the Slavs,
also favors a Slavic origin to the word.
But even amongst those who lean towards a Slavic origin, there is
considerable disagreement. Kazimierz Moszynski suggests that "u-pir" is
from a Serbo-Croatian word "pirati" (to blow). Aleksandr Afanas'ev points
to the Slavic "pij" (to drink), which may have entered the Slavic
language from the Greek, via Old Church Slavonic. A. Bruckner proposes
Russian "netopyr" (bat).
These are just a few of the possible origins of the word "vampire." For
now, it appears that the best answer to the question of where the word
originated is that it's a Slavic word. But where the Slavs got it is
still an unanswered question.
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