Medieval Naming Guides: Italian
Italian Names
Italy acquired a standard language only in the 19th century. Even
today, very distinct dialects of Italian remain in common use. We
have grouped our name lists into three sections: northern, central,
and southern. You can look at
a more detailed
map of the primary dialects of Italy.
- General Patterns
Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 3052
- Discusses the names of married women in the fifteenth or sixteenth
century in several different parts of Italy.
- Northern Italian Names
- Fourteenth Century Venetian Personal
Names, by Arval Benicoeur and Talan Gwynek
- Italian names from Imola, 1312, by Aryanhwy merch Catmael
- Men's and women's given names from a tax roll written in Latin.
-
Fifteenth Century Venetian Masculine Names, by Aryanhwy merch Catmael
- A couple of hundred names of Venetian noblemen.
-
15th Century Italian Men's Names from Pavia and Ferrara, by
Talan Gwynek
- Two lists of names from mid-15th century documents.
-
Milanese Notaries 1396-1635, by Maridonna Benvenuti
- A short list of masculine names.
-
A sample of Jewish names in Milan 1540-1570, by Yehoshua ben
Haim haYerushalmi
- Several dozen full names, mostly masculine but a few feminine.
- Central Italian Names
-
Masculine Names from Thirteenth Century Pisa, by Juliana de Luna
- An excellent analysis of more than 4000 masculine names that
appear in an alliance signed in 1228, as
transcribed by Enrica Salvatori.
- Feminine Names from Thirteenth Century Perugia,
by Arval Benicoeur
- An analysis of 612 names from a 1285 census of this city in central
Italy.
-
Italian Given Names from the Online Tratte of Office Holders
1282-1532, by Aryanhwy merch Catmael
- An index of masculine given names from the following source, sorted by
frequency.
- Florentine
Renaissance Resources: Online Tratte of Office Holders 1282-1532,
edited by David Herlihy, R. Burr Litchfield, and Anthony Molho.
- A scholarly study of masculine names recorded in government
documents. It includes a
list of
given names and a
list of
family names, both with frequency counts; and a
discussion of names that includes notes on naming customs in this
period as well as explanation of the editors' methodology in preparing this
database. They also give a list of
place
names mentioned in their data.
Note that all names are truncated to 11 characters. While it is
easy to complete some of them (e.g. Baldovinett and
Antonfrance represent Baldovinetto and Antonfranceso),
not all of them are obvious. Note also that the editors have translated
Latinized names to standard Italian forms, and chosen one spelling for each
name. They list variant forms of
given
names and
family
names; the former includes diminutitives and the latter includes
alternate surnames used by the same family.
-
Names from Arezzo, Italy, 1386-1528, by Aryanhwy merch Catmael
- The names of 271 men, officers of the city, with an analysis of
naming customs.
-
Italian Renaissance
Men's Names, by Ferrante LaVolpe.
- Over 8000 men's names from the Catasto (census) of Florence taken in
the years
1427-1429 sorted alphabetically and by frequency of use. Given
names and patronymics are listed. The author worked from the
Online Catasto of 1427. The full database is available at that
site with an SQL interface. The authors have provided an
index of family names appearing in the database.
- Feminine Given Names from the Online Catasto
of Florence of 1427, by Arval Benicoeur
- An index based on the same
database as the previous article, with the names sorted by
frequency and alphabetically.
- Italian Masculine Given Names from 15th- and 16th-century Viterbo, by Aryanhwy merch Catmael
- Early 15th-Early 17th C Italian Names, by Aryanhwy merch Catmael
- Names of merchants, money changers, ship captains, and translators.
- Names of 15th-early 17th C Italian Jewish Men, by Aryanhwy merch Catmael
- Names of Jewish merchants living in Italian-held cities in Turkey and Cyprus.
- Southern Italian Names
- A handful of early southern Italian feminine names, by Aryanhwy merch Catmael
- Names of women recorded in charters from southern Italy in the 9th through 11th centuries.
- Jewish Names from 9th C Venosa, by Aryanhwy merch Catmael
- Names of men and women. The forms have been modernized.
- Names from 15th Century Naples, by Aryanhwy merch Catmael
- Names of men and women found in tax documents written in Latin.
- 1800
Surnames Recorded in 1447, by N.F. Faraglia
- A list of surnames from the Sangro valley, taken from a census ordered
by the King of Naples.
- Italian
Men's Names in Rome, 1473-1484, by Mari Elspeth nic Bryan
- A very detailed analysis of names and name construction in a
couple hundred Italian masculine names. The main page leads the
reader through a guide on how to construct names. For researchers,
a more useful entry is
the
table of contents.
-
Names of Jews in Rome In the 1550's, by Yehoshua ben Haim
haYerushalmi
- An analysis of several hundred Jewish men's and women's given names from
mid-16th century court records. The article also includes a short
list of
Christian men and women mentioned in these records.
- Names from Switzerland
- See also French and German, as appropriate.
- Italian Place Names
-
Mercator's Place Names of Italy in 1554, by Maridonna Benvenuti
- Place names transcribed from a 16th century map.
The Medieval Names Archive is published by
the Academy of Saint Gabriel and
Joshua Mittleman.
© 1997-2004. Copyright on individual articles belongs to their
authors.
http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/italian.shtml