Ligurian surnames are the regional surnames held by individuals from the Liguria region of north-western Italy, specifically around the city of Genoa and its hinterland. The name is derived from the fact that the body of water lying between the island of Corsica north to the Italian mainland where Genoa dominates the coast is called the Ligurian Sea. In centuries gone by, before vernacular Italian became dominant in Italy, Ligurian, a Gallo-Italic language, was spoken here. Idiosyncratic surnames developed in tandem in the region. Because the Republic of Genoa controlled the island of Corsica for centuries down to the mid-eighteenth century, Ligurian surnames are also found in considerable numbers on the island, while owing to the extent of the Italian diaspora, Ligurian surnames are also found extensively in the United States, Argentina and other countries.
History of Ligurian surnames
Like so many other regional surname types in Europe, one must have a grasp of how the vernacular tongues developed across Western and Southern Europe in order to understand how local surname classes emerged. In the case of Ligurian surnames, these are intimately connected with the history of the Ligurian language. This is a Gallo-Italic language in the same lingual family as Piedmontese and Lombard. These are Romance languages which stem from Latin and are closely related to modern, vernacular Italian, however, as they are in the border region between Italy and France, they have borrowings from more Gallic Romance languages such as modern, vernacular French, Occitan and Provencal. Additionally, Ligurian borrows from a pre-Roman, pre-Latin language spoken in the Ligurian region, one which was almost certainly part of the Celtic language family.[1]
Ligurian was the main regional dialect spoken in north-western Italy during the Middle Ages and in particular in the lands of the Republic of Genoa, one of Italy’s great medieval trading republics. Thus, Ligurian surnames are primarily found today in Genoa and the surrounding coastal region overlooking the Ligurian Sea, while Piedmontese surnames become more common as soon as one heads any distance inland towards Turin.
Because of Genoa’s extensive mercantile interests and overseas possessions, one will also find some Ligurian surnames beyond this part of mainland Italy. This is especially the case on the island of Corsica, which was first claimed by the Republic of Genoa from the merchant city of Pisa in the late thirteenth century. The Genovese controlled Corsica for nearly half a millennium thereafter and Ligurian surnames emerged there as Genovese families gained extensive possessions on the island. Even today, over two and a half centuries after the French purchased Corsica from the Genovese, in 1768, there are more Lugurian surnames in many places than French surnames.[2]
One can also identify other patterns like this resulting from Genovese trading activity in the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea in late medieval times. Genoa, for instance, controlled much of the Crimea and Kerch Peninsula in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and residual elements of Ligurian surnames are sometimes found there.[3] Similarly, many Ligurian surnames are found within Italian communities in parts of the United States, Argentina and other countries of the western hemisphere today, a product of the Italian diaspora of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Incredibly, there are even four cities in the United States named ‘Genoa’ today, such was the level of Ligurian settlement in the US in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.[4]
Ligurian naming conventions
Ligurian surnames are not enormously different to the mainstream of Italian surnames. However, they do demonstrate some slight differences. Specifically, they tend to end more in ‘o’ or ‘e’ than is typical of peninsular Italy where ‘i’ is a more common ending. Furthermore, there are regional variant surnames which are simply more common in Genoa, the Ligurian coastline and parts of Corsica than elsewhere in Italy.[5]
Most popular Ligurian surnames
Some of the most popular Ligurian surnames in Genoa and the surrounding region are the following:
- Parodi – The most common surname in the city of Genoa, Parodi is an occupational surname which dates back to the High Middle Ages.
- Traverso – A very common surname in the Liguria region. It is believed to be a descriptor surname, indicating someone was described as being ‘long’ or ‘broad’ shouldered/tall.
- Casanova – A popular surname in Liguria and large parts of northern Italy, transliterating as ‘new house’.
- Paoli – A common Genovese and Corsican surname. It is a patronymic surname, effectively deriving from ‘son of Paul’.[6]
Famous Ligurians
- Cristoforo Colombo – This is the real Ligurian name of Christopher Columbus. Colombo was born in Genoa in 1451. His surname is a typically Ligurian one, ending in ‘o’. As is well-known, he re-discovered the Americas for European society, crashing into the Caribbean in 1492 while attempting to find Asia.[7]
- Pasquale Paoli – Paoli was the hero of Corsican nationalism in the eighteenth century, a figure who freed Corsica from Genovese rule, only for it to be replaced by French dominance. Despite his anti-Genovese stance, his surname is distinctly Genovese and Ligurian.[8]
- Eleonora Rossi Drago – A very successful Italian actress during the 1950s and 1960s. Her surname Drago is distinctively Ligurian with its ‘o’ ending.[9]
- Giuseppe Mazzini – Mazzini was one of the key architects of Italian unification in the middle of the nineteenth century. He hailed from Genoa.[10]
Explore more about Ligurian surnames
- Italy, Births and Baptisms, 1806-1900 record collection at MyHeritage
- Italy, Marriages, 1809-1900 record collection at MyHeritage
- Italy Deaths and Burials, 1809-1900 record collection at MyHeritage
- Italians Immigrating to the United States record collection at MyHeritage
- Researching Your Italian Ancestors at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
References
- ↑ https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ligurian-language
- ↑ Thomas Kirk, ‘The Republic of Genoa and its Maritime Empire’, in Rolf Strootman, Floris van den Eijnde and Roy van Wijk (eds), Empires of the Sea: Maritime Power Networks in World History (Leiden, 2019), pp. 153–175.
- ↑ Heloisa Rojas Gomez, ‘Re-conceiving territory in Eastern Crimea: the impact of the Italian community on Kerch’s urban and rural transformation’, in Modern Italy, Vol. 26, No. 2 (2021), pp. 159–180.
- ↑ https://americadomani.com/why-are-these-american-cities-named-genoa/
- ↑ https://www.italyheritage.com/genealogy/surnames/regions/liguria/
- ↑ https://liguria.indettaglio.it/eng/comuni/ge/genova/cognomi/cognomi_di_genova.html
- ↑ https://www.worldhistory.org/Christopher_Columbus/
- ↑ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pasquale-Paoli
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleonora_Rossi_Drago
- ↑ C. R. Badger, ‘A Study in Italian Nationalism. Giuseppe Mazzini’, in The Australian Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 31 (Sep., 1936), pp. 70–80.