The name also evolved the variant forms Argyropoulos (Ἀργυρόπουλος) and the feminine Argyropoulina (Ἀργυροπουλίνα).

[1][2] They hence belonged to the Anatolian land-holding military aristocracy (the "dynatoi"); indeed, they are among the earliest, and almost archetypal, such families to emerge, along with the Doukai.

[2] The family is first securely attested in the mid-9th century, but may have its origins in a certain patrikios Marianos and his son Eustathios, who was captured by the Umayyads in 740/41 and executed after refusing to convert to Islam.

[1] Alexios I Komnenos was engaged to marry an Argyros lady, but she died before the wedding.

In the Komnenian period the family declined in status, and the later Argyroi or Argyropouloi were mostly landholders or intellectuals, among others the astronomer Isaac Argyros and the humanist John Argyropoulos.