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Il Mio Cognome Archive of Italian Families
Cover of the volume Surnames of the Marche

Volume · Marche

Surnames of the Marche

origin, meaning, distribution and fun facts

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€19.90Instant PDF · 176 pages

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  • In Italian and English: you get both versions
  • A4 format: read it on your phone or print it

Before Rome, the Marche belonged to the Piceni, and according to the ancient writers their name came from the woodpecker, the sacred bird that had guided them to their new land. Then came the Greeks of Syracuse, the Byzantines and the Lombards, the popes and the families who crossed the Adriatic, and every story left something in the surnames. Paoloni, Santoni and Marinelli come from the names of fathers, Cingolani and Fermani from the town someone came from.

In this volume you’ll find 200 of the most common surnames in the Marche, from the hill towns to the villages on the coast. Alongside them, 100 lesser-known surnames, some extremely rare, nearly all born here.

  • Origin and meaning
  • Map of the regions
  • Variants
  • Fun facts
  • Surnames province by province
  • Ancestor guide

300surnames

176pages

8history chapters

PDFinstant download

The volume at a glance

Surnames
300: 200 of the most common and 100 lesser-known
Pages
176, in PDF
Provinces
Ancona, Ascoli Piceno, Fermo, Macerata, Pesaro and Urbino
Chapters
eight, on the peoples and stories behind the surnames: Piceni, Greeks and Romans, Byzantines and Lombards, the Papal States, the names of fathers, a village on every hill, sharecroppers and trades, Schiavoni and Albanians, cardboard suitcases

The volume

What's inside

  • For each surname, its origin, its meaning and the language it comes from, from Latin to the Germanic of the Lombards and the Franks
  • The map of the Italian regions where it’s common today and an estimate of how many families carry it
  • Where it stands in the Marche, when the figure exists, meaning its rank in the Marche or in the province, or the town where it ranks first
  • The variants and related surnames, meaning the other forms and spellings of the same surname
  • One fun fact per surname, from a town to a historical figure
  • Eight chapters on the peoples and stories that shaped the surnames of the Marche, from the Piceni to the cardboard suitcases
  • The province-by-province index, the towns where a surname is No. 1, and two indexes, by origin and alphabetical
  • A guide to start searching for your ancestors, a family tree to fill in and a surname scroll
Buy the volume · €19.90
  • Pay by card on Payhip, secured by Stripe
  • Instant PDF, and the link also arrives by email
  • In Italian and English: you get both versions
  • A4 format: read it on your phone or print it
A blurred page from the volume Surnames of the MarcheA blurred page from the volume Surnames of the MarcheA blurred page from the volume Surnames of the Marche

Blurred pages: the full text is in the PDF.

The surnames of the Marche, people by people

Before the Romans, the Marche belonged to the Piceni, and in the north lived the Senones, a Gaulish tribe that gave its name to Senigallia. In 387 BC the Greeks of Syracuse founded Ancona and called it Ankón, “elbow,” for the shape of the headland. Then came Rome, with its roads, its colonies and Latin.

After the fall of Rome the coast stayed with the Byzantines, with the Pentapolis, the “five cities,” while the interior passed to the Lombards of the Duchy of Spoleto. Their warrior names mixed with Latin ones: Corrado, Lamberto, Monaldo, Ubaldo. For centuries the Marche then belonged to the Papal States, until 1860, and this land of shrines and convents gave rise to surnames born of faith, like Cardinali and Illuminati.

In the 15th century, fleeing the advance of the Turks, thousands of families from Dalmatia and Albania crossed the Adriatic and settled on the coast of the Marche: Italians called the Slavs of Dalmatia Schiavoni. In the 19th and 20th centuries hundreds of thousands left, mostly for Argentina, and many moved to Rome and Lazio.

The volume gives a chapter to each of these eight peoples and stories. For nearly all of them it lists the surnames in the book that carry their mark.

How to recognize a surname from the Marche

Some signs are easy to spot. A surname almost always began as the father’s name, written in Latin by the notary: Iohannes Marini, “Giovanni, son of Marino.” That is why so many surnames from the Marche end in -i: Paoloni, Santoni, Marinelli. And each name multiplies with the pet endings -elli, -etti, -ini, -oni, -ucci: from Santo come Santoni, Santarelli and Santinelli, from Domenico Mengoni, Menghini, Mengarelli and Micucci.

Then there are the surnames that say which town someone came from, with the endings -ani, -esi and -ati: Cingolani from Cingoli, Fermani from Fermo. The Marche is a region of hills, with a town on almost every hilltop, and people who moved carried the name of the place they came from.

Province by province

At the back of the volume an index gathers the surnames most common in each province. There are 259 surnames from the book, spread across the five provinces from Ancona to Pesaro and Urbino. Then comes the list of the 36 towns in the Marche where a surname from the book is the most common. In Recanati, for example, No. 1 is Cingolani, the surname of people from Cingoli.

Is your surname in the volume?

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FAQ

Is my surname in the volume?

The full list of the 300 surnames is on this page. If yours isn’t there, request it through our contact page: new booklets come from the most requested surnames.

How is it different from the volume on Central Italy?

The Central Italy volume picks 300 surnames from four regions. This one is devoted to the Marche alone: eight chapters on the region’s peoples and stories and, when there is one, the place in the Marche where each surname ranks highest. 43 surnames are in both: the other 257 you’ll find only here.

Will I find the surnames of my province?

At the back of the volume an index gathers the surnames most common in each province. There are 259 surnames from the book, spread across the five provinces, not just Ancona. There’s also the list of the 36 towns in the Marche where a surname from the book is the most common.

What’s the difference between the volume and a surname booklet?

In the volume each surname has a half-page entry: origin, map, variants and a fun fact. The booklet is devoted to a single surname and tells its story, its towns and its distribution in 12-19 pages. It also has a family tree and a surname scroll personalized with that surname.

Does the volume tell me who my ancestors were?

No. A surname tells you where a word comes from, and two families with the same surname can have completely different stories. At the back of the volume there’s a guide to searching for your ancestors in the archives, free and from home. It includes tips for the Marche, where civil registration already existed under Napoleon, from 1808 to 1814: after that the records went back to the parish priests, from 1862 the parishes sent copies of the records to the State, and from 1866 the municipalities kept them.

Does the volume include my surname’s coat of arms?

No, because a surname has no coat of arms. A coat of arms belonged to one specific branch of a family, not to everyone who carries the surname. When a fun fact mentions one, the entry says which family it belonged to.

What if scholars disagree about the origin?

We tell you. When an origin is certain, it’s written as certain. When it isn’t, the entry carries the gray “disputed origin” badge and gives you the theories.

Can I print it?

Yes, for personal and family use: you can print it for yourself and your relatives.

Buy the volume · €19.90

Marche volumeBuy · €19.90

Buy the volume · €19.90