Several Greek documents from the Archives of the Athonite monastery of St Paul contain information about Radosthlabos Sampias, a Serbian nobleman at the service of the Byzantine Emperors Andronikos IV and John VII. Moreover, a certain Sabyai mentioned in a Turkish document from the same monastery reveal seemingly another reference to Radosthlabos Sampias. Although scholars are agreed on his Serbian origin, they have not shown any interest in the sense or etymology of the Radosthlabos’ family name Sampias / Sabyai. A clue to this problem can be found in a short Cyrillic note on the 15th century copy of the Andronikos IV charter issued to Radosthlabos in 1378. The note says: † pr'vi hrisovul' radosava sablie (The first chryssobul of Radosav the Sabre). Accordingly, the nickname or the family name of Radosthlabos was Sabre, a term for a heavy sword with a curved blade. The word occurs in Serbian sources in two similar forms (sablia and sabia), and their Latin equivalents are sabla and sabia. Grounded in these facts, the explanation of the Greek transcription Sampias is relatively simple - a group of letters mp is used to replace b, hence the word was pronounced as sabias or sambias. Turkish variant Sabyai is also derived directly from a Serbian matching term. It seems most likely that Radosthlabos (or his father) earned this nickname as a person who skillfully handled a sabre.
