Where the Napoli surname comes from
The surname comes from the city: Napoli is the Italian name for Naples. The Greeks who founded it called it Neapolis, “new city.” Napoli was the name given to someone who came from there to another town: a merchant, a soldier, a craftsman. In the records he became “the one from Naples,” and the name passed to his children. That is why the surname was born mostly far from Naples. In the city itself, being “from Naples” set no one apart.
A friar among the monsters
In the 1600s a Napoli was born in Palermo who became a friar, a mathematician and an architect. He worked as far away as Dalmatia, but his name remains tied to two villas in Bagheria. One of them struck a great German poet so deeply that it found its way into one of his works. His story is in the PDF, along with that of an archaeologist named Napoli and a 2,500-year-old discovery.
Where the Napoli families live today
Napoli is first of all a Sicilian surname. There are about 3,700 families in Italy, and the island is the region where the surname is most common. Next come Campania and Calabria. The town where it is number one is in Calabria: Alessandria del Carretto, the highest town in the Pollino National Park. It is also found in Lazio, Apulia, Lombardy and Piedmont. The region-by-region map and the countries around the world they reached are in the PDF.
Variants
The same name is also found with “di” or “de” in front, as in old documents. The PDF explains how it got shorter, and what Napolitano and Napoletano have to do with it.
| Surname | Where it is concentrated |
|---|---|
| Napoli | Sicily, Campania, Calabria |
| De Napoli | Calabria, Campania, Apulia |
FAQ
What does the surname Napoli mean?
“The one who comes from Naples.” It was the name given to someone who moved from Naples to another town. The city’s name comes from the Greek Neapolis, “new city.”
Is Napoli a Sicilian or a Neapolitan surname?
Today it is more common in Sicily than in Campania. This often happens with surnames taken from a city: they are born far from it. It spread above all during Spanish rule and at the end of the 1700s, when Naples was a European capital.
Are Napoli, Di Napoli and De Napoli the same surname?
Yes, they say the same thing: “of Naples,” “from Naples.” The forms with “di” and “de” were often the ones used in documents. In old registers the same family may appear in all three forms.
Are Napoli and Napolitano the same surname?
They have the same meaning, but they are separate surnames. Napolitano means “the Neapolitan” and is much more common: almost 6,800 families, mostly in Campania.
Are all Napolis related?
No. The surname was born as many times as there were families who came from Naples to another town. To trace your own family’s story you need birth records and parish registers.
Is the Napoli surname noble?
In Sicily there was a noble branch, the di Napoli princes of Resuttano. But it was one specific branch: almost all Napoli families descend from ordinary people who came from Naples.
Is there a Napoli family coat of arms?
The archives record the coat of arms of the princes of Resuttano and that of a Napoli family in Rome. They belonged to those branches: no single coat of arms belongs to every Napoli.
