Etymonline contains useful information.

-ize

suffix representing verbs, M.E. -isen, from O.Fr. -iser, from L.L. -izare, from Gk. -izein. English picked up the French form, but partially reverted to the correct Greek-z spelling from late 16c. In Britain, despite the opposition (at least formerly) of OED, Encyclopaedia Britannica, ‘Times of London,’ and Fowler,-ise remains dominant. So how do I avoid -s- from Greek texts? What is the best way to convey, prepare, surprise?

Is there any Greek root in the last list?

The one I’ve had most contact with is baptise which comes directly from two word spelled z.

As someone with an interest in letterforms, I’ve always found z an anomalous letter (the thick stroke goes in the wrong direction) and I far prefer the appearance of these words spelled with an s. That can be a contributory factor (as well as Fowler’s difficulty) even if only subliminally.

In the ^{OED has this etymological note on the ize suffix, and on how they use that suffix in that}

dictionary: Etymology: Cognate with French iser, Italian izare, Spanish izar, late Latin izre, zre, Greek , formative of verbs.

The Greek verbs were partly intransitive, as to play the barbarian, act or speak as a barbarian, side with the barbarians, to side with the tyrants, partly transitive as to purify, clean, to treasure up. Those formed on national, sectarian, or personal names were primarily intransitive, as to Atticize in manners, to speak Attic, to act or speak for Philip, to philippize, to ‘do’ the Greek, act as a Greek, speak Greek, Hellenize; also, to make Greek. A few words of this form were latinized already during the 3rd or 4th cent. Christian writers: such as baptizre, euangelizre, catechizre, scandalizre, anathmatizre, christinizre, christinizre.. Many still existed both in ecumenical and philosophical use, e.g. the Protestant Church. Cannizre, daemonizre, syllogizre (Boethius Aristot. Anal. 167; 10p. ) and this became established as the normal form for the latinizing of Greek verbs, or the formation of verbs upon Greek analogies. In medieval Latin and modern languages they have been formed also on Latin or modern national names, and the use has been expanded to the formation of verbs from Latin adjectives or nouns. In modern French, the suffix has become iser, alike in Greek as baptiser, u00e9vangu00e9liser, organiser, and those formed after them from Latin, as civiliser, cicatriser, humaniser. This practice probably began first in French; in modern French the suffix has become iser, respectively, as are examples of iser. Some have used the spelling ‘ise’ in English, as in French, for all these words, and some prefer ‘ise’ in words formed in French or English from Latin elements, retaining ize for those formed Greek elements. Why would people in France not substitute the French spelling for the Greek as well as the Latin suffix for the Latin suffix that it is based upon? In this dictionary the termination is uniformly written ize. And for the first 12(c) c(C)>C> (A) In the Greek , the i was short, so originally in Latin, but the double consonant z (= dz, ts ) made the syllable long; when the z became a simple consonant whence English /az/.)