Surnames of Umbria

Umbria’s surnames, people by people

Before Rome, the left bank of the Tiber belonged to the Umbrians, a people of shepherds and farmers, and on the right bank were the Etruscans, with Perugia and Orvieto. Of the Umbrian language one unique treasure survives: the Iguvine Tablets, seven bronze plates from Gubbio. Then came the Romans with the Via Flaminia, opened in 220 BC, and a few surnames even preserve the names of their old families: Sensi from the gens Sentia, Porzi from the gens Porcia.

At the end of the 6th century the Lombards founded the Duchy of Spoleto, which for centuries governed much of the region: Grimani and Massoli come from Germanic personal names. Meanwhile the Byzantines defended the corridor between Rome and Ravenna, which ran through Perugia, Todi and Amelia, and brought Greek names of saints: Ambrogi, Calisti, Panfili. Saint Benedict came from Norcia, Saint Francis and Saint Clare from Assisi, and the abbeys gave rise to surnames like Abbati and Monacelli.

In the Middle Ages every Umbrian city was a small state, and the town someone came from became a surname: Brufani from Brufa, Valecchi from Valecchio. From the 16th century until Unification, Umbria was part of the Papal States, and Baiocco comes from the pope’s little coin. Alunni, from the Latin alumnus, was a child raised by a wet nurse or in a charitable home, and Massarelli comes from the massaro, the steward of the sharecropped farms.

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

How to recognize an Umbrian surname

Some signs are easy to spot. The father’s name, often shortened and made affectionate: Domenico becomes Menco and then Mencarelli, Francesco becomes Cecco and then Ceccaroni, Bartolomeo becomes Bartolo and then Bartocci. Then the endings -ucci, -elli, -etti and -oni, sometimes two at once: Fiorucci, Filippucci, Mencarelli, Peppoloni, Tognoloni.

The final -i marks the family: the children of Fioruccio are the Fiorucci. In medieval documents the surname was often written in Latin in the genitive, Iohannes Bartoli, “Giovanni, son of Bartolo,” and that -i stuck. The ending -ucci is a true signature of central Italy.

Province by province

At the back of the volume an index gathers the surnames most common in each province. There are 157 surnames from the book, spread across the two provinces, Perugia and Terni. Then comes the list of the 11 Umbrian towns where a surname from the book is the most common. In Magione, on Lake Trasimeno, No. 1 is Alunni.