Nicknames

Nicknames played a vital part in distinguishing between one family and another in the small villages of Italy. Many families with the same surnames lived in close proximity for many years. You can visit ItalyHeritage.com for a list of surnames recorded in Torricella Peligna in the mid-1990s. Traditionally, they named their children after ancestors. Generally the firstborn son was named after his paternal grandfather, the second son after his maternal grandfather. Daughters were likewise named after their paternal and maternal grandmothers. Consequently, many townspeople had the same names. Dialectal nicknames, many with meanings long lost, made it easy to identify the person or family someone was referring to. A nickname, “soprannome” in Italian, was prefaced with “chis di” meaning “people of”.

Note that in dialect, the ending vowel is usually not pronounced with the full force the final vowel takes on in standard Italian. In dialect, the final vowel becomes somewhat muted sounding like “uh” in English and “eh” in Italian or what is linguistically referred to as the “schwa” sound.

Before they are gone forever, we would like to collect and present here those family nicknames associated with Torricella Peligna. This collection may also facilitate communication among those who are researching their family genealogy. If you would like to participate, please contact us with your information. Perhaps another with your family nickname will see it and contact you.

To submit your family’s nickname to us for publication here, send us an email with the following information:

Family name, nickname, meaning of nickname, name and email address of the contributor