ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1870 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1870 ************************************ From: Lisa and Ken Theriot 27 Jan 2000 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wanted to know if the name would be appropriate for an Italian man in the 15th and 16th centuries. You also wanted to know if was used in Italian, French, or Spanish names. Here is the information we have found. In medieval Italian, forms and spellings of names often varied from one part of Italy to another; Italian was not a single language, but a collection of dialects, some of which were mutually incomprehensible. Most of the spellings given here are modern Italian. While single given names are found much more often than doubles, it was not uncommon in Italy from the 12th century to form contractions of certain given name combinations. [1] The Italian for John, , and its pet form, , was combined with other names in several shortened forms, including . We found , , and recorded in 15th century Florence, [2] and and Gian Giacomo> from 14th and 16th century Venice. [3] Although we did not specifically find , it is in common use today and we believe that it would be an appropriate form for your period. is a modern Italian word meaning "branch". We did not find it used as a surname in period, though we did find a surname used in the Northwest, , meaning "olive branch". [4] Many Italian surnames derive from common objects, especially plants and animals, so it is possible that is a plausible surname, but we found no examples of it, even in modern Italian usage. We believe that the locative surname is not correctly formed. In the data we've studied, Italian surnames based on place-names are formed with rather than . We also did not find the name in Italy; that spelling seems to be Spanish in origin. We found the following place-names in Italy: [5] Monterosso Almo. Sicily Monterosso al Mare, Liguria Monterosso Calabro, Calabria We believe that would be correct for your period. Most of the examples we have seen from your period have only one surname, so or would be more typical; however, compound surnames do occur, so would also be appropriate. You also asked whether the child of an English mother and an Italian father would have an English given name and an Italian surname. We found no examples of this phenomenon in your period and we consider it to be unlikely in the extreme. Even in cases where a person has traveled from one country to another, we find the name translated entirely or not at all. You asked about the name ; it is common both in Italian and Spanish as [2] [6], and in French as [7], for your period. We hope this letter has been useful to you. Please do not hesitate to write again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Arval Benicoeur, Aryanhwy merch Catmael , Juliana de Luna, Maridonna Benvenuti, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Adelaide de Beaumont 27 January 2000 References: [1] Menant, F., "L'Italie Centro-Septentrionale", in Monique Bourin, Jean-Marie Martin, and Franc,ois Menant, eds., _L'Anthroponymie: Document de l'Histoire Sociale des Mondes Me/diterrane/ens Me/die/vaux_, Collection de l'E/cole Franc,ais de Rome, 1996. [2] Ferrante la Volpe, _Men's Names from Florence, 1427_, (WWW: Self-published, 1996), http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/ferrante/catasto/, accessed 27 January 2000. [3] Arval Benicoeur and Talan Gwynek, "Fourteenth Century Venetian Personal Names", (WWW: J. Mittleman,1999), http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/arval/venice14/, accessed 27 January 2000. [4] De Felice, E., _Dizionario dei cognomi italiani_, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Milan, 1978 (s.n. Ramolivaz). [5] The Getty Thesaurus of Place-Names, (WWW: Getty Information Institute, 1999), http://shiva.pub.getty.edu/tgn_browser/, accessed 27 January 2000. [6] Elsbeth Anne Roth, _Sixteenth Century Spanish Men's Names_, (WWW: Self-published, 1998), http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/spanish-m.html, accessed 27 January 2000. [7] Cateline de la Mor, "Sixteenth Century Norman Names", (SCA: KWHS Proceedings, 1994; WWW: J. Mittleman, 1997), http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/cateline/norman16.html, accessed 27 January 2000.