I’ve always been pretty good at identifying the origins of surnames, but I’ve never heard “Balzary” - the surname of Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist and all-around cool guy Flea, aka Michael Balzary.
My guess would be Polish or maybe Hungarian. Does anyone have an idea?
I also guess Hungarian.
My first guess was Hungarian too, and to confirm that, I googled around a bit. http://home.vicnet.net.au/~adhs/LetterB.htmlThis page, presenting the scanned contents for genealogical reasons, features a Hungarian miner named Albert Vincent Balzary.
Does this name share any origins with that of the French writer Balzac?
Every time this name was mentioned in my high school European History class, the obligatory wave of giggles rose up from the male side of the classrom.
Any teachers wishing to avoid this hazard - go for a short ‘a’ sound in both syllables, that’s how the Frensh say it. (I had to stretch my imagination & then my pronunciation, to see what the lads would have been sniggering at.)