Lefkonas, Florina

Macedonian speaking locals of Prespa call this village Попли, Popli.[3] The forms of the toponym rendered with о, а and ъ indicate they emerged from a *o sound and would have originally been either Poplje or Pop'li from the Slavic *pop- pupak meaning navel, centre.[3] Pianka Włodzimierz writes that Poplje would be unlikely as the retention of l in this instance would not occur per the sound change norms of the Macedonian language.[3] Włodzimierz instead states that the toponym might have originally been *Po̧pъlje.[3] The toponym ending would have been replaced with a Turkish suffix lu, due to the importance of the village as a centre for Ottoman administration.[3] In Albanian, the village is called Pëpli.[4]

In the late 19th century, the village was the Ottoman administrative centre and seat of the müdir (district administrator) in the Lower Prespa area.[5] Following the Greek-Turkish population exchange, the village mosque was demolished and the church of Michael the Archangel was built in its place.[6] The village in the modern period is renowned for its landscaped gardens.[5]

In the 1860s, Popli had 50 Christian houses.[5] In the early 1900s, 180 Slavonic speaking Christians and 210 Muslim Albanians lived in the village.[5] The Greek census (1920) recorded 492 people in the village and in 1923 there were 270 inhabitants (or 40 families) who were Muslim.[7] The Albanian village population was present until 1926 when they went to Turkey and were replaced with prosfiges (Greek refugees),[8] due to the Greek-Turkish population exchange. In 1926 within Popli there were 41 refugee families from Asia Minor.[7] The Greek census (1928) recorded 310 village inhabitants.[7] There were 41 refugee families (129 people) in 1928.[7] After the Greek Civil War, the Macedonian speaking population became a minority in the village.[5]

Lefkonas had 127 inhabitants in 1981.[9] In fieldwork done by Riki Van Boeschoten in late 1993, Lefkonas was populated by a Greek population descended from Anatolian Greek refugees who arrived during the Greek-Turkish population exchange, and Slavophones.[9]

• Prespes website