Mavi Boncuk
1.c.1300, from Fr. Turc, from M.L. Turcus, from Byzantine Gk. Tourkos (*), Pers. turk, a national name, of unknown origin. Said to mean "strength" in Turkish. Cf. Chinese tu-kin, name given c.177 B.C.E. as that of a people living south of the Altai Mountains (identified by some with the Huns). In Persian, turk, in addition to the national name, also could mean "a beautiful youth," "a barbarian," "a robber."
2. Meaning "person of Irish descent" is first recorded 1914 in U.S., apparently originating among Irish-Americans; of unknown origin (Ir. torc "boar, hog" has been suggested).
Turkish bath is attested from 1644; Turkish delight from 1877.
(*)Tourkos in Greek: the person that lives in Turkey.
Football: Used by supporters of Aris to characterize the fans of their rivals, PAOK fans. This derives from the origin of PAOK from Turkey,and specifically from Instanbul. Many times PAOK fans have with them Turkish flags to irritate the fans of opposing teams and especially Aris fans.
See Mavi Boncuk Archived Article: ‘Hermes’ Athletic and Cultural Association from Constantinople
AEK of Athens has a Turkish connection too. The acronym AEK—Athlêtikê Enôsis Kônstantinoupoleôs—stands for Athletic Union of Constantinople. AEK was formed in Athens in 1924 by a group of Greek refugees from Istanbul. They were part of the influx of one and a half million refugees who arrived in Greece in the wake of the 1919-1922 Greek-Turkish war and the official population exchange between the two countries in 1923. The Asia Minor Disaster, as those events are collectively known in Greece, meant the transplantation of several Greek sports clubs from the Ottoman lands across the Aegean to Greece. AEK’s founders were athletes who had belonged to Pera Club, a cosmopolitan (mostly Greek) soccer club in Istanbul that remained in the city after 1923. Its uprooted athletes decided to form a new sports club in Athens.
Associating the Constantinopolitan refugee club with the Byzantine empire might not have been solely due to nostalgia for Byzantium, but a defensive reaction to the hostile environment encountered in Greece by the refugees. Regarded as a dangerous drain on scarce resources, the newly arrived refugees were not welcomed by many indigenous Greeks, whose lives had been disrupted by a decade of political upheaval and war. Indeed, Tourkosporoi (of Turkish seed) or yaourtovaftismenoi (“baptized in yogurt,” referring to a major ingredient of Asia Minor cuisine) were some of the insults native Greeks hurled at the refugees.
Supporters of Panathênaikos and Olympiakos prefer to ignore the heroic dimension of AEK’s “refugeeness,” or the respectability that its Orthodox connections imply, and choose, strategically, to focus on its Ottoman origins. When 1970s, witnessed the emergence of a hooliganism in soccer stadiums, it also produced echoes of the old native-versus-refugee tension that had antedated the refugees’ social integration. Opposing fans greeted AEK’s starting lineup with jeers of Chanoumises! (the Hellenization of hanüm, the Turkish word for “wife”) and rhythmic shouts of Tourkoi! Tourkoi! Ton pairnete tsimbouki! (Turks, Turks, you take it in the mouth!/Tsimbouki meaning: Blowjob, in Greek).
