Main contributor: Dr. David Heffernan
The Apulia region of Italy

Apulian surnames are surnames that are found in the Apulia region of south-eastern Italy, the so-called ‘heel’ of Italy on the south-western shores of the Adriatic Sea facing Albania across the waters in the Balkans. The region is broadly rural and punctuated with towns like Taranto, Bari and Lecce. This is a region with a complex history, having experienced multiple invasions and conquests between the end of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century and Italian unification in the nineteenth century. Its lingual landscape has reflected the incursions of the Byzantine Greeks, the Moors, the Normans, the Aragonese, the Spanish and even a French royal family’s dominance here at different times, and a number of regional dialects such as the Barese dialect developed here. These lingual developments necessarily impacted on the spelling and diction of names and are reflected in the surnames of Apulia down to the present day.

History of Apulian surnames

Apulian surnames are a regional variant of Italian surnames, though with idiosyncratic elements to them which reflect the Apulia or Puglia region’s unique history. Southern Italy has experienced waves of invasion, conquest and settlement over the last millennium and a half which have constantly influenced the lingual and surname landscapes of the region. As early as the start of the sixth century the Byzantine Greeks conquered southern Italy, including the Puglia region as part of efforts by the Emperor Justinian to rebuild the Roman Empire in the Western Mediterranean. While his overall plan failed, parts of southern Italy remained under Byzantine control for much of the Early Middle Ages.[1]

The eleventh-century Norman castle at Melfi

During these centuries the region also experienced incursions by the Muslims of North Africa in the ninth century and then by the Normans of northern France in the eleventh century. All of this had had a lasting impact on the surname landscape of Apulia down to the present day. For instance, Apulian surnames such as Trittoni or Altavilla are essentially Norman names. Altavilla is simply the Italo-Norman version of Hauteville, the Hautevilles being the most powerful of the Norman lineages which took part in the conquest of southern Italy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Germans also arrived to southern Italy during the High Middle Ages as the country became embroiled in the conflicts of the Holy Roman Empire.[2]

Other Apulian surnames have developed owing to subsequent incursions into the region from the thirteenth century onwards by ruling classes from France and Spain, notably the Bourbon royal family, a branch of which ruled southern Italy and Sicily, Apulia included, from Naples between 1734 and 1861.[3] However, there are also lingual aspects to the unique development of Apulian surnames. The Barese dialect of Italian, so-named after the town of Bari in the Apulia region, is a version of Italian which was influenced by a wide range of other languages and dialects, including some pre-Latin languages of the region such as Oscan and Messapian. This Barese dialect has had an impact on Apulian surnames, producing names which are different to those found in other parts of Italy, sometimes in rather subtle ways.[4]

Apulian naming conventions

Apulian naming conventions reflect this complex political, ethnic and lingual history. Some popular surnames here are fairly typical Italian names. Russo, for instance, is one of the most common surnames in the entirety of the Puglia region, as it is in the rest of Italy. However, others are more particular to the region. For example, there is a greater level of surnames here with the prefix ‘Lo-’ and ‘La-’, meaning ‘the’, than elsewhere in Italy. Thus, we find a lot of surnames like Lorusso or Loconsole. These are often occupation surnames, such as Loiacono, meaning ‘the deacon’, or Loiodice, meaning ‘the judge’.

Others are surnames which are based on other ethnic and lingual traditions. We have already seen the example of Altavilla simply being an Italianate version of the northern French Hauteville. Other names with either a French or German origin that are found in Apulia include Ruggiero, Grimaldi and Ranieri, while other such as Basile and Serio are of partial Greek origin. Indeed the surname Greco which is found in the Puglia region essentially means ‘Greek’, indicating that ancestors of people with this name were understood to have ties of some kind with the Eastern Mediterranean.[5]

Most popular Apulian surnames

The most popular Apulian surnames tend to be:

  • Greco – Reflecting the Puglia region’s longstanding connections to the Eastern Mediterranean, the Greco surname, literally meaning ‘Greek’, is one of the most common Apulian surnames.
  • Lorusso – A version of Russo, meaning ‘the red’, and indicating the hair colour or some other reddish feature of an ancestor. It is very common in Bari and surrounding areas.
  • Santoro – A name bestowed on someone born on All Saints Day or under some other particularly religious date, the surname is common in Apulia and transliterates as ‘saintly’ or ‘holy’.
  • Leone – A common Apulian surname meaning ‘lion’.
  • Semeraro – This name, which is an occupational surname indicating a forebear led pack animals or a trade caravan of some kind, is more common in Apulia than other parts of Italy, though there are other regional variants such as Pecoraro and Serrato.[6]

Famous Apulians

Tito Schipa
  • Tito Schipa – Reflecting the Puglia region’s position adjacent to Albania across the Adriatic Sea and the connections between the two areas over the centuries, Schipa’s surname is largely Albanian. He hailed from Lecce in the Apulia region and is widely considered one of the greatest tenors of the twentieth century.[7]
  • Cloe Elmo – Another native of Lecce who was also a major soprano of the twentieth century. Her surname may be Germanic in origin, as Elmo can derive from an old Germanic word for ‘helmet’, indicating a warrior ancestor, although it may be derived as well form the Latin Erasmus and would be a patronymic surname if so.[8]
  • Claudio Ranieri – Though born in Rome, this Premier League-winning football manager bears an Apulian surname. Ranieri is ultimately derived from the Germanic Ragnar and means ‘son of Ragnar’.[9]

Explore more about Piedmontese surnames

References

  1. Salvatore Cosentino, A Companion to Byzantine Italy (Leiden, 2021).
  2. John Julius Norwich, The Normans in Sicily (London, 1970).
  3. Harold Acton, The Bourbons of Naples, 1734–1825 (London, 1957).
  4. Luigi Andriani, ‘The syntax of the dialect of Bari’ (PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2017).  
  5. https://www.italianames.com/apulian-last-names.php
  6. https://forebears.io/italy/apulia/surnames
  7. https://historyofthetenor.com/tito-schipa/
  8. https://www.nytimes.com/1947/11/20/archives/cloe-elmo-mezzo-soprano-takes-metropolitan-by-storm-as-azucena-in.html
  9. https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/claudio-ranieri-11069.php


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