Many years ago, I was ensconsed in the comfortable fast train from Rome to Milan when an elegant older gentleman entered the compartment and sat opposite me. In due course we began to chat. My fellow traveller was delightful, well informed, with impeccable manners and a charming sense of humour. The hours sped by and suddenly there we were, under the vast awning of Milan's railway station. He helped me out with my bag, then introduced himself with a formal shake of the hand: "Thank you for your enjoyable company", he said. "My name is ...... Farewell!". And he disappeared into the crowd.
I haven't given his name here because I cannot remember it. It was one of those real shockers: names so unfortunate that on hearing them you either have to laugh or gaze steadfastly ahead and consign the nominal horror to oblivion. And that's what I did.
In Italy changing your surname is practically impossible. It's one of those things you're born with, like a big nose or a tendency to baldness. To change it would be like erasing history (though what my poor travelling companion's forebears had done to deserve what they got would perhaps best be forgotten).
There are about 300,000 traditional Italian surnames. Many of them derive from the name of progenitors: Giovanni Di Pietro would have been Pietro's son; while Stefano Firidolfi would have been the Figlio of Ridolfo. Not only fathers provided names. Salvatore De Rosa would have acquired his from his mother Rosa; Alberto Della Bella would have likewise inherited a maternal name - and perhaps looks as well.
Other names originally indicated provenance. For instance, Alemagna, Albanese and Bulgari referred to nations, while Calabrese, Lombardi, Puglia, Sardo and Siciliano are clearly linked to regions. When in the 1500s the country's Jewish population was confined to urban ghettoes, city names such as Ancona, Carpi and Ferrara were adopted by whole communities.
Trades have also been a rich source of names. The many Ferraris in the country are likely to have had ancestors who forged iron; the Muratoris would have been builders; the Tessitoris weavers; the Scarpas and Scarparis, cobblers.
As for those born without names, the "foundlings" of past centuries, in the south they were often given the name Speranza, meaning hope. A touch of pious optimism never went amiss. Better, perhaps, than landing up with a name that described the physical traits or character of your ancestors: 500 years down the line, being called Brutti (meaning ugly), Sgarbi (bad manners), Gambacorta (short legged), Grasso (fat) might on occasions feel like a bit of a handicap. So could Allegri if you're inclined to melancholy, or Squarcialupo (wolf gasher) for an animal rights activist.
One of Italy's strangest surname situations is to be found in the town of Chioggia, a pleasant fishing town on the lagoon 53 kilometres from Venice. Here, of a population of 51.779 inhabitants, 5.665,14 are called Boscolo, whose ancestors were probably involved in forestry. Little wonder there's no woodland left in the area.
To make things less confusing, in Chioggia nicknames have been institutionalised. Thus the phone book lists not only endless pages of Giovanni or Maria Boscolo, but, between parentheses, the nicknames they use to distinguish themselves as individuals. And even then there are cases of homonymy, or sharing the same name. To be a postman in Chioggia must require the gifts of a historian, a sage and a philosopher.
