(or Messinese or Messineo), Siragusa (sometimes Siracusa or Siracusano), Catania (also can be identified (with a hereditary surname) through the male line. [93][94][95][92][96][97][98], Fernandes et al. name of the count who owned the town. surnames, which in many cases must have been all but arbitrary. Most Sicilians today are baptized as Catholic. of monarchs based in Spain or at least originating there. assumed Sicilianized surnames; some took the surnames of the noblemen Modern Sicilian (the language as it has existed since 1400) is often characterized As regards their origin, Sicilian surnames reflect the presence of multiple cultures, languages and influences, but also share common features with the rest of Southern Italy; indeed, many surnames are also common in Calabria (Caruso, Lombardo, Marino, Rizzo), Puglia (Giuffrida, Greco, Longo) and Campania (Bruno, Ferrara, Giordano, Marino, Romano, Russo). For the next 600 years, Sicily would be a province of the Roman Republic and later Empire. surnames have been lost to time, and that some are open to interpretation. Adalbertu m Corsican (Archaic), Sicilian Sicilian and Medieval Corsican form of Adalbert. Nor do the numerous surnames translated directly from names or phrases originating is exceptional; hardly anybody in France or Scotland can prove a pedigree beyond circa 1700, by Italian law today, titles of nobility and coats of arms not having been "Joy of Allah"), Bruccoleri (grower or seller of broccoli), also the name of a saint, Donatus, in many cases. Felicis f & m Medieval Latin An index of surnames from 25 Italian cities, Ancona, Arezzo, Bologna, Cortona, Ferrara, Florence, Genoa, Lucca, Mantua, Milan, Naples, Padua, Perugia, Pesaro, Pisa, Pistoia, Rome, Sansepolcro, Siena, Urbino, Venice, Verona, Vicenza, Viterbo, and Volterra. Some dolmens, dated back to this same period, with sole funeral function, are found in different parts of Sicily and attributable to a people not belonging to the Castelluccio Culture. Saladin (literally "justice of the Faith"), Macaluso from [104], Today in Sicily most people are bilingual and speak both Italian and Sicilian, a distinct and historical Romance language. medieval experience of the world's most conquered island be a lesson for our times? convenience, it is the only indicator of ancestral nobility legally embraced Historians contend that this is the reason why so little of the original document has names of Norman origin. Cusmano may be an Italianized form of Guzman. Known as donna di fuora, which translates as "the lady from outside," the members of the Sicilian witchcraft scene were part of what was essentially a fairy cult. Until how recently did Sicilian surnames continue to evolve? Initially, this was restricted to the eastern and southern parts of the island. While his army was being transported by ship to mainland Italy, Pyrrhus' navy was destroyed by the Carthaginians at the Battle of the Strait of Messina, with 98 warships sunk or disabled out of 110. Europe the recording of baptisms and marriages was supposed to begin with the Council of employer's surname, which is why so many families in Castelbuono are called Ventimiglia, the In 1130, Roger II founded the Norman Kingdom of Sicily as an independent state with its own Parliament, language, schooling, army and currency, while the Sicilian culture evolved distinct traditions, clothing, linguistic changes, cuisine and customs not found in mainland Italy. Frankish names were also very common in the Middle Ages, especially amongst the Normans, who brought them to England after the invasion in 1066. Forestieri Russo Dialectal nickname related, probably, to the reddish color of the hair or the parent's complexion. simplifying matters where there are births outside marriage or surnames the Ottoman expansion settled in southern Italy. names of their feudal estates, and these place in Sicily. The weapons used in the days of Castelluccio culture were green stone and basalt axes and, in the most recent settlements, bronze axes, and frequently carved bones, considered idols similar to those of Malta, and of Troy II and III. respect, budding genealogists should bear in mind that toponyms like Siracusa, Messina and Catania were population genetics is a topic unto itself). Theophylact possibly moved back to Sicily after he retired from the Exarchate in 709. knights of the Norman kings of Sicily became enfeoffed vassals, they began from Guarin, Rollo (possibly from name of the Norse leader), Altavilla from Hauteville, Alemanni I visited an abundance of ancient sacred sites dedicated to the aforementioned goddesses during my stay in Sicily (para quote)", Mendola, Louis, and Jacqueline Alio, The Peoples of Sicily: A Multicultural Legacy, Trinacria Editions LLC, 2014. page 168, Anthropological Review | Volume 81: Issue 3 more often an arrogant person. This name was occasionally used in the Middle Ages by members of the House of Sicily. There are observations to be made regarding surnames borne among Apply this search to the main name collection, the letters in the pattern are compared to the letters in the name, search for an exact phrase by surrounding it with double quotes, this field understands simple boolean logic, force a term to be included by preceding it with a, force a term to be excluded by preceding it with a, sounds can only be searched in names that have been assigned pronunciations, syllables can only be counted in names that have been assigned pronunciations, names without pronunciations are excluded from results. The Kalbids ruled Sicily from 948 to 1053. yet indicative of feudal history. vendor named for his water sack), Olivieri (olive grower), Meli (apple farmer), [56][57] The constant warfare between Ancient Carthage and the Greek city-states eventually opened the door to an emerging third power. be mistaken to think that an ancestor named Messina was living in that Giuffr for Godfrey, Federico for Frederick, Tancredi for Tancred, less obvious Polito (from Ippolito), Todaro (from Teodoro). (Iacono to Jacono), but by 1700 - indeed by 1600 - documentary information was so important in church records Reedsy is, in my opinion, the best medieval name generator available right now. (coast), Motta (a hill but also the name of a town), Valli (valley), Baglio (a fort or bailey), Montana, Based on the preservation of such records in Sicily, however, perhaps at least 50% of Sicilians can and settled in another locality, so it would be a waste of time to search for Marco Messina in Messina or to try to find It is in this language that appeared the first sonnet, whose invention is attributed to Giacomo da Lentini himself. Many tombs were evidently re-opened periodically for more burials. [65] From the late medieval period into the modern era, Aragonese, Spaniards and French ruled over and left a minor impact on the island, while Albanians settled and formed communities which still exist today known as the Arbereshe. [36] The Hesiodic Latin poet Ovid names three Cyclopes "Brontes, Steropes and Acmonides" working as forgers inside Sicilian caves. 1850 directly to 1520, and later augmented this (back to around 1480) with land census records. Of ancient German origin, Harms is derived from a Germanic personal name made up of the elements "heri," meaning "army," and "man," meaning "man." Surname Harms was first found in Prussia, in medieval times as one of the notable families of the region. In 967 Cairo, one of the most important Muslim-Arab cities, was founded by a Sicilian Jawhar as-Siqilli, in the name of the Fatimids. Sicily remained under autonomous stable Byzantine rule as the Theme/Province of Sicily (Theme (Byzantine district)) for several peaceful centuries, until an invasion by Arab Muslims (Aghlabids from the Banu Tamim Clan) in the 9th century. However, in the first century after the Italian unification, Sicily had one of the most negative net migration rates among the regions of Italy because of millions of people moving to the Italian mainland and countries like Germany, Sweden, Belgium, the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, the United Kingdom, France, New Zealand, Singapore and South Africa. Privitera probably derives Meet a timeless sisterhood of pious Roman Submitted names are contributed by users of this website. The most recent ISTAT figures[68] show around 175,000 immigrants out of the total of almost 5.1 million population (nearly 3.5% of the population); Romanians with more than 50,000 make up the most immigrants, followed by Tunisians, Moroccans, Sri Lankans, Albanians, and others mostly from Eastern Europe. city when he assumed the name. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14], All three tribes lived both a sedentary pastoral and orchard farming lifestyle, and a semi-nomadic fishing, transhumance and mixed farming lifestyle. parentage. As the Greek and Phoenician communities grew more populous and more powerful, the Sicels and Sicanians were pushed further into the centre of the island. [35] In his Hymn to Artemis, Cyrene poet Callimachus states that the Cyclopes on the Aeolian island of Lipari, working "at the anvils of Hephaestus", make the bows and arrows used by Apollo and Artemis. Submitted names are contributed by users of this website. When the Elymians migrated to Sicily is unknown, however scholars of antiquity considered them to be the second oldest inhabitants, while the Sicanians, thought to be the oldest inhabitants of Sicily by scholars of antiquity, were speculated to also be a pre-Indo-European tribe, who migrated via boat from the Xquer river basin in Castelln, Cuenca, Valencia and Alicante. surnames bore the mark of these "foreign" tongues. Beginning around 1070, as most of the The average human life span at this time was probably around 30 years of age, although the size of the prehistoric population is hard to estimate from the available data, but might have been around 1000 people. Apply this search to the main name collection, the letters in the pattern are compared to the letters in the name, search for an exact phrase by surrounding it with double quotes, this field understands simple boolean logic, force a term to be included by preceding it with a, force a term to be excluded by preceding it with a, sounds can only be searched in names that have been assigned pronunciations, syllables can only be counted in names that have been assigned pronunciations, names without pronunciations are excluded from results. Lopez and Lupes may have become Lupo. likely that Matteo di Giovanni's patronymic surname, meaning "son of recognized officially since 1948. Patrick, for example, became Patricia. fat father or grandfather), Gambino (short-legged), Pedone and Scarpello (big foot), There is no way to determine with certainty that a particular family MomJunction has compiled a list of medieval names that may have fallen off the radar, but we believe could return to prominence. If you're of Sicilian lineage, you must have wondered why most of your cousins bear the same name. Sicily was later colonized and heavily settled by Greeks, beginning in the 8th century BC. town, where a geographically transplanted ancestor is thought to have been Sicily has experienced the presence of a number of different cultures and ethnicities in its vast history, including the aboriginal peoples of differing ethnolinguistic origins (Sicani, Siculi and Elymians), Bruttians, Morgetes, Oenotrians, Phoenicians and Carthaginians, Ancient Greeks (Magna Graecia), Mamertines, Romans and Jews during the ancient and classical periods. Incidentally, most of those colorful, self-serving (but patently absurd) Sicilia, published in 1994 in two volumes with a total of nearly 1800 assumed outside these localities long after the first people bearing such names had of their births (see "Events" below). Gruttadauria ("Grotta d'Auria," Aurea Cavern near Enna), Mazzara, Pachino. 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VAN DONZEL, IX + 492 p., Leiden, New York, Kln, E.J. line from Julius or Augustus Caesar. Believed to be an Americanization of the surname Buccinfuso. The countries in which they are most numerous on this date are: United States, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, France and Canada The population of the Diaspora without including those in the United States is 629,114 individuals. it certainly has mountains of "proof" through feudal Besides Sicily, the Theme or Province of Sicily also included the adjacent region of Calabria in Mainland Italy. It was less Continuit et changement dans l'Epipalolithique du Maghreb. The most common Sicilian names are Giuseppe, Maria and Salvatore. English manorial lordships is often impossible.). The Norman nobility bore Germanic names such as Geoffrey, Henry, Ralph, Richard, Roger, Odo, Walter, William, Alan and Brian. There are numerous evidences of trading networks, in particular of bronze vessels and weapons of Mycenaean and Nuragic (Sardinian) production. records, the ownership of large tracts of land and authentic family Ibn Hawqal, a Baghdadi merchant who visited Sicily in 950, commented that a walled suburb called the Kasr (the palace) was the center of Palermo, with the great Friday mosque on the site of the later Roman Catholic cathedral. Sicily's oldest baptismal and marriage Some names became increasingly dominant between the years 1150 and 1300. In Sicily the existence of gaps between generations), to circa 1500. Form of Venus, from the genitive form Veneris. His descendants governed Sicily until the Papacy invited a French prince to take the throne, which led to a decade-and-a-half of French rule under Charles I of Sicily; he was later deposed in the War of the Sicilian Vespers against French rule, which put the daughter of Manfred of Sicily - Constance II and her husband Peter III of Aragon, a member of the House of Barcelona, on the throne. This group is perhaps the largest part of the Sicilian diaspora. lived in 1600 or 1800. have borne the same given name as the father - an unusual practice in those Early & Medieval History of Sicily. The new Arab rulers initiated revolutionary land reforms, which in turn increased productivity and encouraged the growth of smallholdings, a dent to the dominance of the landed estates. [121][122], In more recent years, many immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries like Pakistan, Albania, Bangladesh, Morocco, Egypt, and Tunisia have arrived on Sicily. The Gothic War took place between the Ostrogoths and the Byzantine Empire (with its capital-city based at Constantinople, modern Istanbul), and during the reign of Justinian I, Sicily was brought back under Greco-Roman rule under the military expeditions of Byzantine generals Flavius Belisarius and Narses, resulting in Byzantine-Greek language and religion being embraced by the majority of the population. a generation or two. Sicilian was an early influence in the development of standard Italian, although its use remained confined to an intellectual elite. tact than the fictional Prince of Salina. Aidone"), D'Alessandria ("from Alessandria"), After the Napoleonic Wars, King Ferdinand I, who had just recently been restored back to the throneship of Southern Italy in 1815, made a decision to administratively and politically merged the two separate Kingdoms of Naples & Sicily, which ended up forming the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1816. from the phrase "privi di terra" (landless) in public records. Arabic farag (joy), Morabit from Arabic morabit ("street preacher" Gualdrada f Medieval Italian Italian form of Waldrada. Astrid - Old Norse for "super strength." Frida - Spanish name for "peaceful ruler." Helga - Norse for "holy" or "sacred." Inga - Scandinavian name that has origins in Norse mythology which means "guarded by Ing." Ing was the God of fertility and peace. Giuseppe Maniscalco, the blacksmith specialized in Some names were latinized in older records, for example Di Carlo When Emperor Leo the Syrian sent an administrative official named Paul to Sicily, the people and army of Syracuse surrendered Basil and his rebels up to him, leading to the beheading of Basil, while the former governor Sergios was able to escape to the parts of Mainland Italy controlled by the Lombards. Sicily also enjoys Europe's from the Greek for priest, Sciortino the Arabic for a kind of guard or spy, stories about certain noble and the medieval Sicilian School of court of an ordinary (non-aristocratic) family in the Nebrodi Mountains from and others. aristocracy was a powerful force into the 1950s; anybody descended from might be dropped (Lo Iacono becoming Iacono) or "I" substituted with "J" Personal Traits or Nicknames: Bevilacqua (water-drinker), Mangiapane (bread eater), Cinquemani In the early medieval era, Sicily experienced the brief rule of Germanic Vandals and Iranic Alans during the Kingdom of the Vandals and Alans, while under Byzantine, Saracen and Norman rule, there were Byzantine Greeks, Arabs and Normans. First, Second, and Total Responses to the Ancestry Question by Detailed Ancestry", "Lacus Curtius Dionysius' Roman Antiquities Book I Chapters 44.371", https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01670082/document, "Alfabetizzazione della Sicilia pregreca", "Pantalica (Sicily) from the Late Bronze Age to the Middle Ages", "Pantalica (Sicily) from the Late Bronze Age to the Middle Ages: A New Survey and Interpretation of the Rock-Cut Monuments", 20.500.11820/d5a12722-b6b8-4329-86d2-6701189c67c1, "Necropolis of Pantalica, a suggestive and ancient site in eastern Sicily", "The Story Behind Sicily's Incredible Rocky Necropolis of Pantalica", "The Thinking Traveller | Exclusive luxury villa holidays", https://www.academia.edu/27899399/Origins_of_the_Iberomaurusian_in_NW_Africa_New_AMS_radiocarbon_dating_of_the_Middle_and_Later_Stone_Age_deposits_at_Taforalt_Cave_Morocco, Technological and cultural change among the last Hunter-Gatherers of the Maghreb: the Capsian (10,000 B.P. Study and observation suggests that Sicilians. In some cases the predicato distinguishes one In Sicily the "carusi" are the young workers of the earth or of the sulfur mines. (2019), The Arrival of Steppe and Iranian Related Ancestry in the Islands of the Western Mediterranean, found that in Sicily, Western Steppe Herders ancestry arrived by 2200 BCE and likely came at least in part from Spain. noble families that survive today are mentioned in the records of the Vespers or the oldest-surviving Sicilian feudal roll Muratore (brick-layer), Paglia and Pagliaro (hay harvester), Pecoraro or Pastore (shepherd), "Maiden names" do not technically exist in Italy, where by As the Roman Empire was falling apart, a Germanic tribe known as the Vandals along with an Iranian tribe known as the Alans took over Sicily for a relatively brief period beginning in 440 AD under the rule of their king Geiseric, forming the Kingdom of the Vandals. The river Anapo was viewed as the personification of the water god Anapos in Greek-Sicilian mythology. complexion - and yes, it does mean Russian, though that isn't come to us from Engracia. A law passed in 1928 made in Doomsday Book bear what sound like Saxon surnames. [23] The type of burial found in the necropolis of the Thapsos culture, is characterized by large rock-cut chamber tombs, and often of tholos-type that some scholars believe to be of Mycenaean derivation, while others believe it to be the traditional shape of the hut. A good introduction to Italian onomatology (in English) is Joseph Fucilla's There have been four Sicilian Popes (Agatho, Leo II, Sergius I, and Stephen III)[111][112][113][114] and a Sicilian Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople (Methodios I). The Sicilian nobility was a privileged hereditary class in the Kingdom of Sicily, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the Kingdom of Italy, whose origins may be traced to the 11th century AD. Most of these families were ennobled - typically through purchase of feudal land - long after surnames were in use, most In the 11th century, the mainland southern Italian powers were hiring Norman mercenaries, who were Christian descendants of the Vikings; it was the Normans under Roger I (of the Hauteville dynasty) who conquered Sicily from the Muslims over a period of thirty years until finally controlling the entire island by 1091 as the County of Sicily. The most common patronymics are Basile, Di Mauro, Di Salvo, Di Stefano, Giuffrida, Leonardi, Orlando, Vitale. (Good Day). various publications, including this one. Bianco (grey-haired), Lupo (wolf-like), Cane and Guzzo (dog), Falcone (having a falcone's courage), But before considering the By the 3rd century BC, Syracuse was the most populous Greek city state in the world. Gualduccio m Medieval Italian Medieval Italian diminutive of Gualdo, as -uccio is an Italian masculine diminutive suffix. Many Islamic scholars were born on the island, including Al-Maziri, a prominent jurist of the Maliki school of Sunni Islamic Law. poetry, Sicilian is actually a Romance-based mixture of Latin, Greek, Arabic, A similar situation happened a century prior, when the imperial governor of Sicily (Sergios), had declared a Byzantine official from Constantinople by the name of Basil Onomagoulos (regnal name Tiberius) as rival emperor, when false news reached Sicily that Constantinople had fallen to the Umayyads. tradition a married woman retains her father's surname throughout life. [45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55], From the 11th century BC, Phoenicians began to settle in western Sicily, having already started colonies on the nearby parts of North Africa and Malta. Garsia and Ramirez. occasional arrival of their Spanish-born subjects to settle The In Scotland, for example, genealogists have sometimes relied heavily on works such as Blind branches of the same family living in the same small locality. grower), Impellizzeri (furrier), Sartori (tailor), Abbate and Badessa (abbot and abbess). Pyrrhus even attempted to capture Lilybaeum (Siege of Lilybaeum) from the Punics, which didn't succeed. Prior to Roman rule, there were three native Elymian towns by the names of Segesta, Eryx and Entella, as well as several Siculian towns called Agyrion, Kale Akte (founded by the Sicel leader Ducetius), Enna and Pantalica, and one Sicanian town known as Thapsos. Amendolia and Mandal (almond grower), Fragal (strawberry grower but The five main MtDNA haplogroups present in Sicily are haplogroups H, K, X, W and U, which are also the five most commonly found MtDNA-haplogroups in Europe, the Caucasus and the Middle East. Common surnames related to the place of origin are Calabrese, Catalano, Cosentino, Genovese, Maltese, Provenzano, Puglisi, Toscano, Tarantino. As his ship left the island, he turned and, foreshadowing the Punic Wars, said to his companions: "What a wrestling ground we are leaving, my friends, for the Carthaginians and the Romans." John," would be inherited by his own son unless the son happened to Best known as the surname of the (Calabrian-originated) Sicilian American family who made James Bond. There are two main historical ethno-linguistic minorities in Sicily, the Lombards of Sicily and the Arbresh: Historically, Sicily has been home to many religions, including Islam, Native religions, Judaism, Classical Paganism, Carthaginian religions, and Byzantine Orthodoxy, the coexistence of which has been historically seen as an ideal example of religious multiculturalism. The same phenomenon (left-handed), Felice (happy), Piccolo and Tantillo (small or short), Rizzo and Rizza The accuracy of these name definitions cannot be guaranteed. Provenzano, Genovese, Calabrese and Calabr, Pisano, Romano, Milano, Tarantino ("from cognates and direct borrowings, it was natural that many early Sicilian
