Blog
Where surnames come from, what they mean, how to search for your ancestors. And the things nobody usually tells you.
Esposito, Proietti, Innocenti, Colombo. How the surnames of babies left in the foundling wheel were chosen, city by city, and why carrying one doesn’t mean you descend from a foundling.
Read the article →The Portale Antenati puts the birth, marriage, and death registers of the Italian State Archives online, for free. How to find a record, how to climb back a generation, and where to look when the register is missing.
Read the article →Two people with the same surname can be related, but they almost never are. It depends on how many times the surname was born, and only documents can say for sure.
Read the article →The most common surname in Italy is Rossi, but almost every region has a different winner. Where Colombo, Ferrero, Esposito, and Sanna dominate, and why each area has its own signature.
Read the article →In Sicily every people who arrived by sea left words behind, and many became surnames. Greeks, Arabs, Normans, Spaniards, names of towns and village nicknames, and how to tell which path yours comes from.
Read the article →Almost every Italian surname comes from a name, a place, a trade, a nickname, or a good wish. Five steps to work out where yours comes from, and where the origin of the surname ends and your family’s story begins.
Read the article →Anyone selling you “your surname’s coat of arms” is selling you a drawing. Who a coat of arms really belonged to, four real examples, and how to find out if your family ever had one.
Read the article →Your surname
The most requested surnames have their own booklet: the origins, the hometowns, where families live today, the map, and a family tree to fill in.
The volumes
Three PDF volumes, each with the most common surnames of one part of Italy: origin, meaning, where they're found today and a fun fact.
Lombardy, Veneto, Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna, Liguria, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Alto Adige, Aosta Valley
300 surnames · 175 pages · €19.90
Buy the volume · €19.90
Tuscany, Umbria, Marche, Lazio
300 surnames · 172 pages · €19.90
Buy the volume · €19.90
Abruzzo, Molise, Campania, Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria, Sicily, Sardinia
300 surnames · 176 pages · €19.90
Buy the volume · €19.90
