Where the Di Martino surname comes from
Di Martino means “son of Martino”: it’s a patronymic surname, born from the father’s name. When a village had three men named Giovanni, one became “Giovanni di Martino,” and that “di Martino” passed to children and grandchildren. The name Martino comes from Latin and is linked to Mars; it was a saint who made it one of the best-loved names in Europe, and his story is in the PDF. That’s why the surname was born in many different places, with no single founder.
An astronomer and an asteroid
In the 1700s a Di Martino from the Benevento area calculated the latitude of Naples by watching the sun at noon, and two centuries later another Di Martino gave his name to an asteroid. Their stories are in the PDF.
Where the Di Martinos live today
Di Martino has two hearts, Campania and Sicily, with about 3,900 families in Italy. The town where it’s strongest is Casaluce, in the province of Caserta, where it’s the second most common surname; in Sicily it’s at home above all around Ragusa. More than four thousand Di Martinos live outside Italy, and in the United States the surname changed shape. The map and the countries are in the PDF.
Variants
The same father gave five surnames, from the simple form to the plural, all the way to the Sicilian one written as a single word. The PDF explains where each one comes from.
| Surname | Where it is concentrated |
|---|---|
| Di Martino | Campania, Sicily |
| De Martino | Campania |
| Martino | Campania, then all of Italy |
| Martini | Tuscany, Veneto, Lazio |
| Dimartino | Sicily, around Ragusa |
FAQ
What does the surname Di Martino mean?
“Son of Martino”: the father’s name turned into a family name. The name Martino comes from the Latin Martinus, linked to Mars.
Is Di Martino a Neapolitan or a Sicilian surname?
Both: it has two hearts, Campania, especially the Caserta area, and Sicily, especially the Ragusa area.
Are Di Martino and De Martino the same surname?
They share the same origin, the father’s name Martino, and for centuries the two forms were interchangeable: the 18th-century astronomer appears written both ways. De Martino is more typical of Campania.
Are all Di Martinos related?
No. It’s a patronymic surname, born thousands of times from fathers named Martino who were not related to each other. Only records can trace a family’s story.
Is there a Di Martino family coat of arms?
No single coat of arms belongs to every Di Martino. If a Di Martino family had a coat of arms, it belonged to that branch alone.
Is the Di Martino surname noble?
The surname itself doesn’t indicate nobility. It was born from the names of many fathers called Martino, in all kinds of towns: if a branch had a title, it belonged to that branch alone.
Why is it spelled DiMartino in the United States?
In the United States the “di” joined the rest of the surname. Today the DiMartinos, written as one word, far outnumber the Di Martinos written as two.
