Italian Names

Italian Names is an interesting website packed full of information and tidbits about Italian Names.  They cover everything from Italian Baby names to the most Common Surnames found in Italy. There is also a page specially for Top Baby Names around the World which not only include Italy but the US, Denmark and Canada. The information is complied using data up to 2004.

Make sure to check out the section where it shows the longest and shortest Italian Surnames found in the Italian White Pages  - Pagine Bianche.

With the holiday season upon us I thought it would be nice to talk about some holiday inspired names.  Some names that come to mind are Natale (Christmas) Grazia (Grace) and Bifano (Epiphany).  All have been used as first or surnames.

A quick search on Searching the Enhanced Ellis Island Database in One Step using Natale with no variation returns over 2300 persons with the surname arrived through Ellis Island between 1892-1924.  By removing the letter e from the end of the name and searching again, the returns are over 3400.  By doing a search using it as a first name, which does yield some variations, almost 15,000 hits are returned!
Using Gens-Italia, we find the surname is present in over 956 towns with the highest concentration in the regions of Campania and Lombardy.  And of course, if we use the Italian White Pages Pagine Bianche to search the surname, we find that 3317 people are listed.

Let's try the same thing with Grazia. Doing a quick search on Grazia, again with no variation, we find that 3282 immigrants with the surname entered through the New York port.  Gens Italia returns the name is still present in 158 towns with the highest concentration in Emilia Romagna while there are only 423 persons listed in the Italian White pages.

The less popular Bifano still returns 119 hits on Ellis Island, found in 72 towns in Italy and 158 hits on the Italian White Pages.

As a side note - while extracting records from various towns in Reggio Calabria, I often noticed that the first names Natale and  Natalina were given to persons born either near or on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day.  I also found that these births, and many births which took place in late December were not registered until January the following year so my advice is that if you are looking for someone named Natale and are having difficulty locating a birth record, try looking in the months of December and January.  
Name Meaning and History
Bifano

Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
Grazia
Italian form of Grace.

This post is dedicated to my good friend "Biff" and his family who I now consider a part of my very special Gente family.  God Bless and Happy Holidays.

A great resource for looking up Italian surnames and locating people in Italy is to use the on line Pagine Bianche (White Pages).  This telephone directory also links to the Pagine Gialle or the Yellow Pages so you can locate businesses.

There are a few ways to use the site. The first is to click on ricerca, then plug in the surname and or address in chi/cosa and the comune(town, city or province) name in dove if known. Another way to use the site is to click on ricercha speciale and use it to do a reverse look up if you know a phone number but don't know who it's registered too.

No matter how you choose to use the site it's definitely worth checking out.