The Search for our Ancestry (LVII)

Names, Names, Names

By Angelo Coniglio

Over the past few years, several of my columns have dealt with the importance of our ancestors’ names, when researching their important records to extend our family trees. Because I continually receive questions about Sicilian and Italian given names, surnames, nicknames, ‘maiden’ names and so on, I’ll recap, with some details I’ve more recently learned about each of those types.

I’ll begin with the earliest presentation of names, those in sacramental church records, made before the time that ‘civil’ record-keeping began in Sicily and the northern duchies and civil states of the Apennine peninsula (that is, before the early 1800’s). The sacraments involved were baptism, chrismation (confirmation), marriage and extreme unction. Because extreme unction is the sacrament administered just preceding death, these latter church records are termed ‘death records.’ The earliest church records (as early as the 15th century), and in many cases those to this day, were written in the official church language, Latin. Here are points to remember about names in Latin records:

‘Given’, or ‘first’ names are usually different than they are in the Italian language. The Latin for Giovanni is Joannes; for Felice it’s Felix; for Orazio, it’s Horatio; for Vincenza it’s Vincentia; Grazia is Gratia, and so on. This is more the case for masculine names, where virtually all have differences between Latin and Italian. Many feminine names are the same in Latin and Italian: Maria, Angela, Rosa, etc.

Surnames or family names are usually the same in Latin as in Italian.

Given names vary with the usage of the name in the record. A marriage record for Antonio Russo, son of Angelo, e. g., would list Antonius and Angelus (the declarative forms) in the margin, but the actual record would say the groom was ‘filius Angeli’, where ‘filius’ means ‘son’ and ‘Angeli’ means ‘of Angelus’.  The ‘i’ ending on a masculine name that normally ends in ‘us’ is the ‘genitive’ form, carrying the meaning ‘of’ or ‘from’. For feminine names ending in ‘a’, the genitive ending is ‘æ’, usually handwritten to look like an uppercase ‘E’. So ‘filius Mariæ’ means ‘son of Maria’; ‘filius Rosæ’ means ‘son of Rosa’, etc.

A potentially confusing aspect of Latin names is that in many cases, they are different from the corresponding Italian names, but the same as the eventual ‘Americanized’ name. The Italian name ‘Giuseppe’ is ‘Joseph’ in church Latin; ‘Michele’ is ‘Michael’ in Latin; ‘Felice’ is ‘Felix’ in Latin; and ‘Elisabetta’ is ‘Elisabeth’ in Latin. See my web page at http://bit.ly/LatinGivenNames

Once civil records were kept for births, marriages and deaths, they were written in the official language of the region. Even though there was no nation known as ‘Italy’ prior to 1861, the official language was Italian. Many descendants of immigrants knew their nannu or nanna only by the short family-used versions of their Sicilian/Italian given names. A brief list of these follows. For more, see http://bit.ly/ShortenedSicilianNames

It’s important to search original records using the correct ‘proper’ name, as shortened names were never ‘official’. Also, often the diminutive forms of many feminine names were used by families. Angelina, Rosina, Concettina (little Angela, little Rosa, etc.) would be Angela, Rosa and so on in official records. Be open-minded. Don’t say “That “Angela” can’t be my grandmother, her name was Angeline.”  

Coniglio is the author of the book The Lady of the Wheel, inspired by his Sicilian research. Order the paperback or the Kindle version at www.bit.ly/SicilianStory Coniglio’s web page at http://bit.ly/AFCGen has helpul hints on genealogic research. If you have genealogy questions, or would like him to lecture to your club or group, e-mail him at genealogytips@aol.com.