Knowing your relative’s name in his/her original language is very important. Before you start searching old records, take the time to determine the right name, including its correct spelling. Because the oldest records are church records written in Latin, many names in the old church registers are difficult to recognize.  This is a list of Latin given names, showing the equivalent names in the Italian and Sicilian languages, the Sicilian 'short' names, and the names as they were Anglicized in the United States. The Italian and Sicilian versions have pronunciation guides in English phonetics.  The emphasized syllable is shown in CAPITALS in this guide.  Note that vowels in both the Sicilian and Italian languages have the following sounds: A is “ah”; E is “eh” (“long a”); I is “ee”; O is “oh” (“long o), and U is “oo”. “ A, E, I, O, U” in Italian is “ah, eh, ee, oh, oo”!!  The English sound of I (“long i” as in “eye”) is given by the combination “ai” in Sicilian or Italian.   The Sicilian language, like Italian, has no letter "k", "y" or "w".  Those languages have a letter written like "j", but this "j" is actually a form of the letter "i", and is pronounced as we would pronounce "y" in English.

        In the list, under 'Latin' you'll notice that several names look like English: Agatha, Joseph, Michael, Samuel, and so on.  That's because many English names simply repeated the Latin versions exactly.

         Latin nouns, including proper nouns such as given names, have different forms or 'declensions' indicated by their endings, depending on where they occur in a sentence. So the same names can be spelled differently in the same document.  The Latin names shown below are in what is called the nominative or vocative form, generally used to address or identify an individual.  These are the basic names shown below, and are used to list persons or to refer to the primary person in a record.  The accusative form is used when the person is the object of an action, and another form is the genitive form, which shows ownership or origin.  For example, 'Antonius' means 'Antonio', while 'Antonium' means 'to Antonio' and 'Antonii' means 'of Antonio'.   'Vincentia' means 'Vincenza', while 'Vincentiam' means 'to Vincenza' and  'Vincentiæ' means 'of Vincenza'.  I can't present all versions here, but in general, masculine given names end in 'us' in the vocative form, 'um' in the accustive form, and 'i' in the genitive. Feminine names end in 'a' in the vocative, 'am' in the accusative, and 'æ' in the genitive.  In cursive handwriting, the 'æ' usually looks like a fancy upper case 'E'.
 

        Some Latin names were 'reverse engineered'.  For example the Sicilian name 'Ugliermo' was derived from the English 'William'.  Priests then Latinized it as 'Guglielmus'.  The Italian 'Diego' is from the Spanish 'Sant' Iago', where 'Iago' is from the Latin 'Jacobus', meaning 'James'.  But priests re-Latinized 'Diego' as 'Didacus'.  And 'Didacus', which originally meant 'James', is ultimately Anglicized as 'Richard'!

        Note that names with the syllable 'al' or 'bert' often are significantly changed: 'Alberto' becomes 'Bert', and can properly become 'Albert', but can also morph to 'Robert'; and 'Alfonso' becomes 'Al', which can become 'Alphonse', but also 'Alfred'>'Fred', or 'Albert'>'Bert'!

         The English 'translations' of the names are sometimes literal translations (e. g. Carlo > Carl).   However, often they are seemingly arbitrary, or simply a result of matching the first letter of a name, as in Biaggio > Billy > William, or a dominant syllable, as in Vincenzo > James.

         The lists are alphabetized in the first column by Latin name.  This is the way they will appear in an alphabetical church index, but you must be careful, because certain names in Latin begin with different letters than the equivalent Sicilian and Italian names.  Examples: for Giacomo, look under the 'I', which is written in script as 'J' (Jacobus, pronounced Iacobus, see 'No letter "j" in Sicilian'); for Filippo, look under the 'P' (Philippus); for Giralomo, look under the 'H' (Hieronymus).  The 'Latin' names indicated by an asterisk* are actually originally of Hebrew origin, and those with a double asterisk** were originally Greek names.

DISCLAIMER: My experience is in researching records from the regions that once comprised lu Regnu di Sicilia: the Kingdom of Sicily, the world's first modern nation of parliamentary government, which extended from Abruzzo and Napoli in the north to Messina and Palermo on insular Sicily.  Hence, the given names that I have encountered and present here generally reflect those Sicilian roots.

MASCULINE NAMES

FEMININE NAMES

Family Origins Coniglio Family Origins Alessi and Abate Family Origins

Heritage

Coniglio
Generations:

Genesis

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