Residents of the small town of Chioggia, in the Veneto region, have won a long battle for the right to use their nicknames legally.
The town, which has a population of 52,000, numbers many people with the same surname among its citizens - for instance, there are 8,000 people with the surname Boscolo – so since the eighteenth century the inhabitants have used nicknames to distinguish different branches of their families.
The nicknames have traditionally been written in the margin or beside the surname on birth certificates, thus leading to much confusion.
The citizens have found themselves in particular difficulty in recent years, with the introduction of electronic identity cards and health cards. If they have encountered difficulty in identifying themselves in Chioggia, you may imagine the bureaucratic problems they have had during their travels to other parts of Italy or abroad.
Some of the commonest nicknames are not very flattering and among them are “Pazzo” [Mad] “Grasso” [Fat] and “Femminella” [Effeminate]. Others reflect trades. The Mayor, Romano Tiozzo, whose family were straw sellers, is also known as “Pagio” [Straw].
The citizens are proud and fond of these names and will now be allowed to use them on legal documents as second surnames.
“If there are any other towns in a similar situation we will try to sort it out for them”, an optimistic Mr Micheline Davico, Undersecretary at the Ministry of the Interior, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.
Would you like to be known everywhere by your nickname?
