The Gidos family appears briefly in Byzantine history at the turn of the 12th/13th century. The etymology of the surname is uncertain, but one view considers it to be from the Greek word for "goat" ('Gida' γίδα f., γίδι), another speculative view suggests that the etymology of the surname may be of Latin origin, and is the hellenized form of the Italian name "Guido". This in turn led some scholars to theorize that there may be a connection with the Gidos family and &lt;a href="Guy%20of%20Hauteville"&gt;Guy/Guido&lt;/a&gt;, a son of the Norman conqueror of southern Italy, Robert Guiscard, who defected to the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos (ruled 1081–1118) centuries earlier, entered his service and possibly married into the imperial family. Byzantine sources do not treat the family as having a foreign origin and it has not been possible to demonstrate any connection with the son of Robert Guiscard or a Latin origin. W. Hecht casts doubt on a Latin origin of the family.