Italian surnames are the result of a complex history. The peninsula’s peoples’ names were first shaped by the Romans two millennia ago, but while these died out with the advent of the middle ages and a new culture and society, some residual elements of those surname practices survived. Elsewhere the country’s surname heritage has been influenced by Germanic elements following the conquest of large parts of the country by the Lombards and Normans between the sixth and eleventh centuries, as well as the influence of the Muslims of North Africa on Sicily and the south of the country in medieval times.[1]
History of Italian surnames and naming conventions
Italian surnames are the result of numerous different points of origin. Back in Roman times, people of the patrician and equestrian classes used a praenomen such as Gaius or Marcus, along with a nomen and cognomen to indicate their family or gens. Thus, Gaius Julius Caesar was known as Gaius according to his praenomen, Julius according to his nomen and his cognomen was Caesar. In terms of surnames, the important part here was the nomen, as Julius indicated that Caesar was from the gens Julii. Elements of these praenomen and nomen survived into the medieval period, but they declined substantially and instead individuals adopted the Germanic practice of being known by either their profession, where they were from or some physical characteristic which they possessed like red hair to identify them.[2] These descriptors eventually evolved into surnames in the course of the late middle ages and early modern period.
Thus, the de Medicis, who came to control the city of Florence in the fifteenth century and beyond, owe their surname to a formal adoption of a name which had formerly been given to an ancestor of theirs who was a medical doctor (medici). The Castellano surname derives from people who have once been described as living in castles and so forth.
Other surnames indicated lines of descent. For instance, da Giovanni means that a line of people are descended from a forebear named Giovanni who was deemed to have played a particularly prominent part in the creation of their family line. Contadino indicates that one comes from a line of farmers. All of these surnames became standardised and adopted as formal surnames during the early modern period, such that by the time of Italian unification in the mid-nineteenth century there were three clear types of Italian surnames: those which described the physical characteristics of a descendant; those which described the profession of an ancestor; and those which described where a family was originally from or who started the family, these latter usually beginning with a ‘de’, ‘di’ or ‘da’.[3]
Most popular Italian surnames and their origins
The most popular Italian surnames tend to be:
- Rossi[4] – Rossi falls into the category of Italian surnames which are descriptors. It effectively means ‘red’ and was used to describe people with red hair. It is believed to be the most common Italian surname in Italy (approx. 350,000 people) and is also common amongst diaspora Italians in countries like Brazil (approx. 70,000 people) and the United States (approx. 35,000)
- Russo – This is the southern Italian equivalent of Rossi.
- Ferrari – Though more commonly associated with luxury cars today, the Ferrari surname is also extremely common throughout Italy, where nearly 200,000 people are called this. It means ‘blacksmith’.
- Colombo – Colombo, the actual surname of Christopher Columbus, means something close to ‘dove’ and was a surname given to orphans at one time in Italy. It subsequently was passed on as a surname. Over 130,000 people in Italy have this surname today.
- De Lucca – Over 75,000 Italians have the surname De Lucca. This is an example of an aristocratic patronymic and effectively means ‘of Lucca’ or ‘of the line of Lucca’.
Geographical spread of Italian surnames
Certain types of surnames tend to be associated with specific parts of Italy more than others. This is owing to the complex regional history of Italy, which between the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century CE and Italian unification in the mid-nineteenth century was ruled by dozens of competing states and foreign powers, each of which left their own indelible marks on the surname heritage of specific parts of the country. For instance, the influence of the French and Spanish, who vied for control of the region for much of the sixteenth century, can be seen in names like De Santis, which is largely of Hispanic origin. In Sicily common surnames like Garufo, Burgio, Saladino and Cassesse are derived from Arabic surname heritage as it impacted on the island between the seventh and eleventh centuries when Sicily was controlled by the Muslim powers of North Africa.
The Italian diaspora
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Italian surnames or variants thereof are found all over the world today. This is because of the enormous amount of migrants who left Italy between the 1860s and 1930s looking for a better life overseas. The history of the Italian-American community in cities like New York, Chicago and Miami is well attested to, but of the millions of Italians who left the home country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many also left for other parts of Europe and in particular for South America. Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay were major centers of this Italian migration, but none equaled Argentina, where so many Italians headed for during these decades that more Argentines today are of Italian heritage than of Spanish. For instance, Lionel Messi, The famous Argentinian footballer, is of Italian ancestry and the Messi surname has its origins in northern Italy in Lombardy and the Veneto. The Messi name comes from the Veneto and Lombardy region of northern Italy, which for a time between the 1870s and 1890s was providing a greater proportion of migrants to the Americas than was Sicily and southern Italy.[5]
Famous people with Italian surnames
- Leonardo da Vinci – Famed as the painter of the Mona Lisa, but an all-round Renaissance polymath. His surname indicates his descent from the founder of the family, Vinci.[6]
- Leonardo DiCaprio – One of the most successful Hollywood actors of his generation. DiCaprio or Di Caprio is a surname which indicates the occupation of the original founder of the family as a goat-herder or shepherd, as caprae is ‘goat’ in Latin.
- Monica Bellucci – An acclaimed actress from Italy who has starred in many French productions. The Bellucci surname comes from bello for ‘beautiful’. Interestingly, the name was widespread amongst a group of migrants who ended up in Italy in the fourteenth century having travelled all the way from the Middle East.
- Christopher Columbus – An explorer who rediscovered the Americas in 1492, originally hailed from Liguria in north-west Italy. Columbus is an Anglicisation of Colombo which means ‘dove’, but which was a surname given to orphans in northern Italy in medieval times.[7]
Explore more on Italian surnames
- Last name research on MyHeritage
- Italian historical record collections on MyHeritage
- Italian Surnames: Uncovering the Rich Heritage of the Zeppetelli Family on the MyHeritage Blog
- Researching your Italian Heritage on the MyHeritage Facebook Page
See also
References
- ↑ https://www.italymagazine.com/featured-story/interesting-history-italian-last-names
- ↑ https://www.italymagazine.com/featured-story/interesting-history-italian-last-names
- ↑ https://www.myitalianfamily.com/resources/history-behind-our-italian-last-names
- ↑ https://surnam.es/italy
- ↑ https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/italian/early-arrivals/
- ↑ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leonardo-da-Vinci
- ↑ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Christopher-Columbus