Surnames of Central Italy

Central Italy’s surnames, story by story

The very idea of a family name was born here. The Etruscans, between the Arno and the Tiber, already had a personal name and a family name passed from father to son, and the Romans used the same system. With the fall of the Empire people went back to having a single name, but many Roman names survived thanks to the saints and, after the year 1000, became surnames again: Valeri, Fabrizi, Massimi.

Then came the Lombards, with the Duchy of Spoleto and Lucca as the capital of their Tuscia: from them come Guidi, Landi, Baldini. For more than a thousand years Lazio, Umbria and the Marche were ruled by the Popes, and the world of saints, pilgrims and confraternities lives on in Santi, Benedetti, Pellegrini. In the Tuscan cities of merchants and bankers, surnames grew out of fathers’ pet names: Cecco, Vanni, Nardo and Bindo became Cecchi, Vanni, Nardi and Bindi. Then there are the foundlings of Florence’s Spedale degli Innocenti, the Jews of Rome with the names of Lazio towns, and the newcomers who brought the name of their city with them: Lucchesi, Pratesi, Romagnoli.

The volume gives a chapter to each of these eight stories, with the surnames in the book that carry its mark.

How to recognize a surname from Central Italy

The final -i is the family plural: the Mancini, the Santi. Diminutives in -ini, -elli, -etti and -ucci are everywhere: Bartolini, Marinelli, Moretti, Paolucci. In Lazio there’s De with the notaries’ Latin -is: De Angelis, De Santis, De Carolis, meaning “of the family of the Angeli, the Santi, the Caroli.” And in Rome many foundlings became Proietti, from the Latin proiectus, “exposed.”