Origins of the Maurice family
Slovenian Roots
The ancestors of Daniel Jadran Maurice are all from modern day Slovenia. Virtually all of them— Mavrič, Čadež, Jakin, Reja and related families — came from the region of Goriška Brda (“Brda” for short), along the present Slovenia—Italy border. They were concentrated in the tiny village of Kozana, just a couple of kilometres from that border at the Italian city of Gorizia and its Slovenian sister city, Nova Gorica .
Slovene? Slovenian?
Note that on this website “Slovenian” and “Slovene” has been used interchangeably as an adjective and to describe the national language of Slovenia.
Mavrič, Maurič, Mauri, Mauric, Maurice
Daniel’s family name appears in several different forms in Slovene, Italian, British, Australian and other historical records.
The 1921 Slovene birth certificate of Daniel’s father, Ivan, records his surname as Mavrič. The same form appears in the Church records of his birth, as do the surnames of all Ivan’s family ancestors and siblings. But in an Italian-issued passport in 1929 to Ivan’s mother, Kristina, the surname is given as Maurič (pronounced "Mow-rich" in English, to rhyme with “cow”) where the letter v has been replaced with a u. Kristina is also buried in Kozana with the gravestone marked Kristina Maurič.
What’s going on?
First some quick background on alphabets.
The classical Latin alphabet had only 23 letters. Before the letter U came into use in the Middle Ages, the letter shape V stood for both the vowel U and the consonant V. In Slovene, like many other Romance languages, V continued to be used for both sounds until comparatively recently. By the early 20th century two letters, separately representing the consonant and the vowel, started to be more consistently distinguished in the written form of Romance languages.
The Slovenian alphabet contains just 25 letters. The alphabet does not have the English language letters W, Q, X, or Y. But it does include three non-English letters: Č (pronounced as ch in English), Š (sh), and Ž (zh, as in azure). The mark above the letters is called a Caron, or, in Slovenian, strešica (literally “little roof”).
Representing both v and u with a V was further reinforced in Slovenia by the dominance of the Catholic Church to which the overwhelming majority of inhabitants belonged and the Church’s use of Latin for “official” business. In old Slovenian Church records it’s common to see Slovene Christian names written in their Latin form, for example Antonius, not Anton, and Josephus rather than Jožef.
So Mavrič and Maurič are really just two ways of representing the same surname. Typically--but not always--Mavrič will appear in older "formal" documents, like state and church records while Maurič was more likely used in day-to-day settings
Further confusion with the Mavrič/Maurič name arises as a result of the incorporation of western Slovenia, including where Ivan was born, into Italy between the two World Wars. From the late 1920s the Italian Fascist authorities sought to purge all elements of Slovene nationality and culture, using increasingly coercive tactics that today would certainly be described as "ethnic cleansing". This included a law, passed about 1938 that officially banned Slovene personal names and surnames. Thus by 1941, when Ivan was conscripted into the Italian Army, his service file records his name as Giovanni Mauri (Giovanni is of course the Italian version of John, just as Ivan is the Slovene version of the same name).
By 1944, when Ivan joined the British Air Force, his surname is shown as Mauric, replacing the final Slovene character č with the English c. The same form of the name appears in 1949-1950 International Refugee Organisation (IRO) forms associated with Ivan’s displaced persons application and, later, in government documents during the first few years after Ivan and Danila’s arrival in Australia in 1950.
Finally in 1956, when Ivan and Danila became Australian citizens the surname changed again, with the addition of a final e, making it Maurice.
For the sake of consistency the Mavrič form of the name is used when discussing Daniel’s Slovene ancestors before the generation of his father, Ivan, approximately coinciding with the early 20th Century.
Etymology of the Mavrič name
The surname Mavrič is a classic example of a patronymic surname created through the historical blending of Classical Latin, early Romance, and South Slavic linguistic influences.
1. Etymological Root: Classical & Romance Foundations
The primary root of the surname is the given name Maver or Mavr.
Greek & Latin Roots: The base stems from the Ancient Greek word μαῦρος (mauros), meaning "dark," "swarthy," or "dusky." In Late Antiquity, this was adopted into Latin as the personal name Maurus (and its derivative Mauritius), which originally referred to a Moor or a person from the North African region of Mauretania.
Medieval Christian Veneration: The popularity of Maurus and Mauritius across medieval Western Europe—including the Patriarchate of Aquileia and the Littoral region—was heavily driven by the cult of early Christian saints. The most influential was Saint Maurice (Sveti Maver in Slovene), the 3rd-century leader of the legendary Roman Theban Legion, who became a popular patron saint among soldiers, artisans, and churches throughout the Alps and Northern Adriatic.
Slovene Evolution: In old Slovene dialects, the Latin Maurus evolved into the vernacular given names Maver, Mavr, or Mavro.
The same adjective root (mur / mavr, meaning "dark-colored") was deeply embedded in older Slovene lexicon. It is the exact etymological foundation for the Slovene word for rainbow, mavrica, which historically referenced the vivid, contrasting colors worn by early Mediterranean or Moorish traders (Mavrke).
Rather than being derived from a physical trait (like "dark-haired") directly assigned to the surname's original progenitor, Mavrič is therefore an inherited patronymic. It marks the lineage of a family whose late medieval ancestor bore the baptismal given name Maver.
The surname Mavrič follows standard Slavic surname morphology, formed by appending a suffix to the father’s given name, thus Mavrič translates directly to "Son of Maver" or "Descendant of Mavr" (analogous to etymology of the surnames Morrison or Fitzmaurice in English traditions).
Introduction to Maurice Family History
From 1947 until 1992 Slovenia was one of the six republics that made up Yugoslavia. As already described, between the two World Wars western Slovenia, including the Brda region, was incorporated in Italy. Brda was the site of some of the bloodiest battles of World War One, although this is little known in Australia, where we naturally focus on Gallipoli and the Western front. Before WW1 Brda, and all of Slovenia was a province of the Austro-Hungary Empire for several hundred years. So all of Daniel's ancestors knew change and directly experienced the impact that war and political developments.
As Roman Catholics their births, marriages and deaths were all dutifully recorded in the files of the local church in Kozana, which has been very helpful when conducting family research!
Original Kozana Church Baptismal Book (in Latin). This example page includes details of the birth of Ana Reja in 1777. Ana later married Stefan Čadež, the great-great-great-great-grandfather of Daniel Maurice.
On the paternal side the Mavrič line goes back to Andrej Mavrič, born about 1760. The Čadež family can be traced to Stefan Čadež, born in 1775. On Daniel’s maternal side the oldest identified relatives are Janez Jakin (born 1801) and Jernej Reja (born about 1795).
There was also much inter-marriage between its families in Kozana. It is likely that Daniel and brother Rick are directly or indirectly related to just about everybody still living in this and surrounding Brda villages.
Regional Distribution of the Mavrič surname
The Mavrič surname is heavily concentrated in western and northwestern Slovenia, with deep historical and genealogical roots across three primary regions:
Goriška (Gorizia Region / Northern Primorska)
This area has the highest concentration of this surname throughout Slovenia.
The Brda hills (especially villages like Kozana, Hum, and Šmartno), the Soča Valley (Tolmin, Kobarid), and the city of Nova Gorica are the key hubs.
Obalno-kraška (Coastal-Karst Region)
Koper, Izola, Piran, and the Karst plateau (Sežana region). The presence of this name along the Slovenian littoral is likely due to historical internal trade routes and coastal urban migration from the surrounding rural hinterlands.
Central Slovenia (Osrednjeslovenska / Ljubljana)
Metropolitan Ljubljana and surrounding municipalities. There is a higher concentration of the Mavrič surname in this area than elsewhere in Slovenia, but still still well below the Gorizia and Coastal-Karst Regions.
Mavrič descendents in Austria, Argentina and Australia
While many relatives still live in Kozana, the Mavrič family has also spread around the world. Daniel’s parents, Ivan Mavrič and Danila Jakin, escaped from Yugoslavia in 1949 to start a new life in Australia. But they were not the first of their families to leave. Ivan's mother, Kristina Čadež, had a close association with Klagenfurt in Austria. Today the Schumnik family who descendants of another Mavrič sibling, Ernesta, live there. And during the 1920s and 1930s Danila's father, Rudolf Jakin spent almost a decade working in Argentina. Two of his brothers stayed in Argentina permanently and it is still the home of a branch of the Jakin family.
Today Daniel and brother, Richard (Rick) have direct living relatives in both Austria, Argentina and Switzerland. Perhaps there are more in the United States where many people from Slovenia, including the Brda region, migrated in the early 20th century..
The stories of some of these ancestors are described in the chapters below.