The Complete Guide to Italian Jewish Surnames: What Your Family Name Reveals
If your last name is Modigliani, Levi, Pontecorvo, Cardoso
Or even something as unassuming as Romano, Pugliese, or De Rossi, you may be carrying the echo of one of the oldest Jewish stories in Europe. Italian Jewish surnames are unlike any others in the Diaspora. They were never shaped by a single expulsion, a single language, or a single rabbinic tradition. Instead, they accumulated over more than two thousand years layer by layer, wave by wave until the surname itself became a kind of compressed family history.
This guide walks you through that history. We'll trace the four great waves that brought Jews to the Italian peninsula, decode the meanings hidden in toponymic, professional, and translated names, and look closely at the most overlooked story of all: the Anusim of Calabria and Sicily, whose descendants today may number in the millions and whose surnames sit quietly in phone books from Reggio to Brooklyn.
A note before we begin. Carrying a name on the lists below does not make you Jewish in any halakhic sense, and it does not even prove Jewish ancestry on its own. What it does is something more interesting: it gives you a thread to pull. By the end of this guide, you'll know which threads are worth pulling and which ones lead somewhere meaningful.
This guide walks you through that history. We'll trace the four great waves that brought Jews to the Italian peninsula, decode the meanings hidden in toponymic, professional, and translated names, and look closely at the most overlooked story of all: the Anusim of Calabria and Sicily, whose descendants today may number in the millions and whose surnames sit quietly in phone books from Reggio to Brooklyn.
A note before we begin. Carrying a name on the lists below does not make you Jewish in any halakhic sense, and it does not even prove Jewish ancestry on its own. What it does is something more interesting: it gives you a thread to pull. By the end of this guide, you'll know which threads are worth pulling and which ones lead somewhere meaningful.
The Four Waves: How Italian Jewish Surnames Were Made
Most Diaspora communities can be traced to one or two formative migrations. Italy is the exception. The Italian peninsula absorbed Jewish populations in at least four distinct waves, each leaving a different fingerprint on the surname landscape.
Wave 1: The Italkim — Italy's Indigenous Jews
The Jews of Italy are older than Italy itself. Roman Jewish communities are documented from the second century BCE; Cicero's Pro Flacco references a Roman Jewish community more than a century before the destruction of the Second Temple. After the Roman conquest of Judea in 70 CE, thousands of Jewish prisoners were brought to Italy as slaves and then ransomed by the existing community.
These indigenous Jews called Italkim in Hebrew or simply Italiani in older sources predate the Ashkenazi/Sephardic split entirely. They developed their own liturgical rite (Nusach Italki), their own Judeo-Italian dialects, and their own onomastic traditions. According to a legend recorded in the late 16th century by Rabbi David de Pomis of Venice, four ancestral families were brought to Rome by Titus after the Temple's destruction: min ha-tappuchim (of the apples → de Pomis), min ha-adumim (of the reds → de Rossi), min ha-anavim (of the humble → Anau), and min ha-ne'arim (of the youths). When Rome conducted a census of its Jewish population in 1571, 278 families were classified as Italiani (indigenous) and 110 as Tramontani (foreign).
The Italkim are the deepest layer of Italian Jewish surnames. Names tied to this group include Anau, de Pomis, de Rossi, and a vast roster of toponymics drawn from the small towns of Lazio and central Italy names like Di Segni, Piperno, Pontecorvo, Rieti, Tivoli, Anticoli, Castelnuovo, Frascati, Genazzano, Tagliacozzo, and Veroli.
These indigenous Jews called Italkim in Hebrew or simply Italiani in older sources predate the Ashkenazi/Sephardic split entirely. They developed their own liturgical rite (Nusach Italki), their own Judeo-Italian dialects, and their own onomastic traditions. According to a legend recorded in the late 16th century by Rabbi David de Pomis of Venice, four ancestral families were brought to Rome by Titus after the Temple's destruction: min ha-tappuchim (of the apples → de Pomis), min ha-adumim (of the reds → de Rossi), min ha-anavim (of the humble → Anau), and min ha-ne'arim (of the youths). When Rome conducted a census of its Jewish population in 1571, 278 families were classified as Italiani (indigenous) and 110 as Tramontani (foreign).
The Italkim are the deepest layer of Italian Jewish surnames. Names tied to this group include Anau, de Pomis, de Rossi, and a vast roster of toponymics drawn from the small towns of Lazio and central Italy names like Di Segni, Piperno, Pontecorvo, Rieti, Tivoli, Anticoli, Castelnuovo, Frascati, Genazzano, Tagliacozzo, and Veroli.
Wave 2: The Sephardim — After 1492
The expulsion from Spain in 1492 sent a tidal wave of refugees across the Mediterranean. A portion came to Rome, where they brought names like Almosnino, Corcos, Gategno, and Sarfati. A smaller group settled in the Kingdom of Naples until they too were expelled in 1541 among them the famous Abarbanel family.
A second, larger wave arrived in the late 16th century: the so-called "Portuguese Jews." These were descendants of Conversos: Spanish and Portuguese Jews who had been forcibly baptized but secretly retained Jewish practice. When Italian states began offering relative tolerance, especially Ferrara, Ancona, Venice, and above all Livorno (which under the Leggi Livornine of 1591–93 was the only major Italian city without a ghetto), thousands of these crypto-Jews emerged into open Jewish life.
Many kept the Iberian surnames they had used as Catholics: Fonseca, Lopes, Mendes, Pinto, Rodrigues, Cardoso, Pereira, Suarez, Enriquez, Nunes, Silva, Castro, De Paz, De Medina, Soares. Others reclaimed older Jewish surnames their ancestors had used in medieval Spain: Aboab, Attias, Namias, Mazaod, Abravanel. Still others took the priestly markers: Cohen, Levi, Israel when they returned openly to Judaism.
In Livorno specifically, you also find Ergas, Cardoso, Mendes, Pereira, Coen, Levi, Saporta, Curiel, Belmonte, Cassuto, Errera, Jesurum, and Ortona.
A second, larger wave arrived in the late 16th century: the so-called "Portuguese Jews." These were descendants of Conversos: Spanish and Portuguese Jews who had been forcibly baptized but secretly retained Jewish practice. When Italian states began offering relative tolerance, especially Ferrara, Ancona, Venice, and above all Livorno (which under the Leggi Livornine of 1591–93 was the only major Italian city without a ghetto), thousands of these crypto-Jews emerged into open Jewish life.
Many kept the Iberian surnames they had used as Catholics: Fonseca, Lopes, Mendes, Pinto, Rodrigues, Cardoso, Pereira, Suarez, Enriquez, Nunes, Silva, Castro, De Paz, De Medina, Soares. Others reclaimed older Jewish surnames their ancestors had used in medieval Spain: Aboab, Attias, Namias, Mazaod, Abravanel. Still others took the priestly markers: Cohen, Levi, Israel when they returned openly to Judaism.
In Livorno specifically, you also find Ergas, Cardoso, Mendes, Pereira, Coen, Levi, Saporta, Curiel, Belmonte, Cassuto, Errera, Jesurum, and Ortona.
Wave 3: The Ashkenazim — Venice and the North
Beginning in the 13th century and accelerating through the 16th, German-speaking Jews fleeing pogroms and anti-Jewish legislation in Bavaria, Austria, and the Rhineland crossed into northern Italy. They settled densely in the Republic of Venice (Venice, Padua, Verona), the Duchy of Milan, the Duchy of Mantua, and around Trieste but smaller Ashkenazi communities formed everywhere, including a Scola Tedesca (German Synagogue) in Rome.
Many of these immigrants didn't yet have hereditary surnames when they arrived. Once in Italy, they often took the names of the towns where they settled, producing a curious phenomenon: Italian-sounding surnames borne by families of indisputably German origin. Bassano, Colorni (from Colorno), Conegliano, Pescarolo, Soncino (later Sonsino), Modena, Padova, Verona, and Reggio are all toponymic surnames frequently carried by Ashkenazi families.
Other Ashkenazi families kept names tied to their German origin. Tedeschi, Tedesco, Todesco, Todeschini (literally "German") became one of the most common surnames in Italian Jewry. The Luzzatto / Luzzatti dynasty traces its name to Lausitz in Saxony. Morpurgo comes from Marburg. Ottolenghi comes from the German town of Ettlingen. Heilpron / Alpron is Heilbronn. Katzenellenbogen is the Hessian town from which the Paduan rabbinic dynasty took its name. Mintz (or Minci) comes from Mainz. Rappa of Nuremberg gave rise to the Rappaport dynasty.
Many of these immigrants didn't yet have hereditary surnames when they arrived. Once in Italy, they often took the names of the towns where they settled, producing a curious phenomenon: Italian-sounding surnames borne by families of indisputably German origin. Bassano, Colorni (from Colorno), Conegliano, Pescarolo, Soncino (later Sonsino), Modena, Padova, Verona, and Reggio are all toponymic surnames frequently carried by Ashkenazi families.
Other Ashkenazi families kept names tied to their German origin. Tedeschi, Tedesco, Todesco, Todeschini (literally "German") became one of the most common surnames in Italian Jewry. The Luzzatto / Luzzatti dynasty traces its name to Lausitz in Saxony. Morpurgo comes from Marburg. Ottolenghi comes from the German town of Ettlingen. Heilpron / Alpron is Heilbronn. Katzenellenbogen is the Hessian town from which the Paduan rabbinic dynasty took its name. Mintz (or Minci) comes from Mainz. Rappa of Nuremberg gave rise to the Rappaport dynasty.
Wave 4: The Anusim — The Hidden Jews of the South
This is the wave most people don't know about, and it may be the largest. After the 1492 Spanish expulsion and the 1541 Neapolitan expulsion, southern Italy: Calabria, Sicily, Puglia, parts of Campania, saw something different from the north. There were no thriving ghettos to flee to. Many Jews instead converted, often under duress, and continued to practice Judaism in secret. Their descendants are the Anusim (Hebrew: "the forced ones") or Bnei Anusim ("children of the forced ones").
According to historians and Rabbi Barbara Aiello, who founded the first active synagogue in Calabria in 500 years (Sinagoga Ner Tamid del Sud, in Serrastretta), researchers estimate that roughly half of pre-Inquisition Calabria and Sicily was Jewish and that a large proportion of today's southern Italians and Italian-Americans descend from these crypto-Jewish families.
Anusim surnames are the hardest to identify because they were deliberately designed to look Christian. We'll devote an entire section to them below.
According to historians and Rabbi Barbara Aiello, who founded the first active synagogue in Calabria in 500 years (Sinagoga Ner Tamid del Sud, in Serrastretta), researchers estimate that roughly half of pre-Inquisition Calabria and Sicily was Jewish and that a large proportion of today's southern Italians and Italian-Americans descend from these crypto-Jewish families.
Anusim surnames are the hardest to identify because they were deliberately designed to look Christian. We'll devote an entire section to them below.
Toponymic Surnames: A City-by-City Guide
By far the largest category of Italian Jewish surnames is toponymic derived from the name of a city, town, or region. When Jewish families were expelled from one place and settled in another, their new neighbors often identified them by where they had come from. Over generations, the toponym hardened into a hereditary surname.
A crucial caveat and we'll repeat it because it matters: a toponymic surname does not automatically mean Jewish ancestry. A Christian Milanese who moved away might just as easily be called "Milano." But certain toponyms are so heavily concentrated in historical Jewish populations that they function as strong indicators.
The following table is drawn from the foundational 1925 work by Samuele Schaerf, I cognomi degli Ebrei d'Italia, which catalogued the surnames of approximately 9,800 Jewish families across Italy.
Regional names that signal Jewish ancestry include Toscano (Tuscan), Pugliese (Apulian), Calabrese (Calabrian), Romano (Roman), Veneziani (Venetian), and D'Italia ("of Italy" borne by families who had migrated abroad and were so identified on return).
A crucial caveat and we'll repeat it because it matters: a toponymic surname does not automatically mean Jewish ancestry. A Christian Milanese who moved away might just as easily be called "Milano." But certain toponyms are so heavily concentrated in historical Jewish populations that they function as strong indicators.
The following table is drawn from the foundational 1925 work by Samuele Schaerf, I cognomi degli Ebrei d'Italia, which catalogued the surnames of approximately 9,800 Jewish families across Italy.
City / Region | Surname(s) Derived |
Ancona | Ancona, D'Ancona |
Bassano | Bassano, Bassan |
Bologna | Bologna, Bolognese, Castelbolognesi |
Cagli | Cagli |
Camerino | Camerini, Camerino |
Capua | Capua, Di Capua |
Carpi | Carpi |
Castelnuovo | Castelnuovo, Castelnuovo Tedesco |
Civita Castellana | Civita |
Colorno | Colorni |
Fano | Fano, Da Fano |
Ferrara | Ferrarese (NB: Ferrara/Ferrari ≠ Jewish; means "blacksmith") |
Foligno | Foligno |
Genazzano | Genazzani, Genazzano |
Jesi | Jesi |
Livorno | Livoli (rare) |
Lucca | Anau is sometimes traced to Lucca |
Macerata | Macerata |
Mantua / Marcaria | Marcaria |
Massa | Massa, Massarani |
Milan | Milano, Da Milano |
Modena | Modena, Modigliani, Modigliano |
Mondovì | Mondovì |
Monselice | Monselice |
Montagnana | Montagnana |
Montalcino | Montalcini, Montalcino |
Mortara | Mortara |
Nepi | Nepi, Di Nepi, Neppi |
Norcia | Norsa, Norzi |
Orvieto | Orvieto |
Osimo | Osimo |
Padua | Padova, Padoa, Padovani |
Parenzo | Parenzo |
Pavia | Pavia |
Perugia | Perugina |
Pesaro | Pesaro, Pesaro Maurogonato |
Pisa | Pisa, Da Pisa |
Pitigliano | Pitigliani |
Pontecorvo | Pontecorvo, Pontecorboli |
Pontremoli | Pontremoli |
Ravenna | Ravenna |
Recanati | Recanati |
Reggio (Emilia) | Reggio |
Rieti | Rieti, Rietti |
Rimini | Rimini |
Rome / Lazio | Romano, Roma |
Rovigo | Rovighi |
Senigallia | Senigaglia, Senigallia |
Soncino | Soncino, Sonsino |
Sulmona | Sulmona |
Tagliacozzo | Tagliacozzo |
Tivoli | Tivoli, Di Tivoli |
Trani | Trani |
Trieste | Trieste |
Udine | Udine |
Urbino | Urbino, D'Urbino |
Venice | Veneziani, Veneziano, Venezia |
Verona | Verona |
Viterbo | Viterbo, Viterbi |
Volterra | Volterra |
Regional names that signal Jewish ancestry include Toscano (Tuscan), Pugliese (Apulian), Calabrese (Calabrian), Romano (Roman), Veneziani (Venetian), and D'Italia ("of Italy" borne by families who had migrated abroad and were so identified on return).
Sephardic Surnames in Italy: Livorno, Ferrara, and Ancona
While toponymic names dominate among the Italkim and the Ashkenazim of the north, the Sephardic strand of Italian Jewry is best identified by Iberian-style surnames concentrated in three cities.
Livorno was the great Sephardic capital. The Leggi Livornine drew Jews from Spain, Portugal, North Africa, and the wider Mediterranean. Surnames carried by Livornese Sephardim include: Cardoso, Mendes, Pereira, Lopes, Lopez, Fonseca, Nunes, Nunes Vais, Nunes Franco, Silva, Pinto, Rodriguez, De Castro, De Sousa, De Paz, De Medina, Enriquez, Suarez, Soarez, Saporta, Curiel, Belmonte, Cassuto, Ergas, Errera, Jesurum, Franco, Ortona, Carvalho, Aboab, Abravanel, Almagià, Almansi, Alphandery, Coen, Levi, Toledano, Tolentino, Sasportas, Attias, Namias, Mazaltov.
Ferrara was an earlier Sephardic refuge. The Este dukes welcomed Spanish and Portuguese Jews from the late 15th century onward, and some of the great Sephardic families including the Abravanel settled there. Many later moved on to Livorno or Venice.
Ancona, under papal control after 1532, briefly tolerated then violently persecuted its Portuguese Jewish merchants. Surnames such as Pinto, Mendes, Fonseca, and Nunes in Marche often trace to this short window.
A subgroup worth noting separately is the North African Sephardim descendants of 1492 expellees who passed through Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, or Libya before reaching Italy. Surnames in this lineage include Sasportas, Boccara, Toledano, Bedarida, Hassan, Hayoun, Hodara, Tabet, Disegni, Misan, Tagger, Tazartes, Sarfati, Saadun.
Livorno was the great Sephardic capital. The Leggi Livornine drew Jews from Spain, Portugal, North Africa, and the wider Mediterranean. Surnames carried by Livornese Sephardim include: Cardoso, Mendes, Pereira, Lopes, Lopez, Fonseca, Nunes, Nunes Vais, Nunes Franco, Silva, Pinto, Rodriguez, De Castro, De Sousa, De Paz, De Medina, Enriquez, Suarez, Soarez, Saporta, Curiel, Belmonte, Cassuto, Ergas, Errera, Jesurum, Franco, Ortona, Carvalho, Aboab, Abravanel, Almagià, Almansi, Alphandery, Coen, Levi, Toledano, Tolentino, Sasportas, Attias, Namias, Mazaltov.
Ferrara was an earlier Sephardic refuge. The Este dukes welcomed Spanish and Portuguese Jews from the late 15th century onward, and some of the great Sephardic families including the Abravanel settled there. Many later moved on to Livorno or Venice.
Ancona, under papal control after 1532, briefly tolerated then violently persecuted its Portuguese Jewish merchants. Surnames such as Pinto, Mendes, Fonseca, and Nunes in Marche often trace to this short window.
A subgroup worth noting separately is the North African Sephardim descendants of 1492 expellees who passed through Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, or Libya before reaching Italy. Surnames in this lineage include Sasportas, Boccara, Toledano, Bedarida, Hassan, Hayoun, Hodara, Tabet, Disegni, Misan, Tagger, Tazartes, Sarfati, Saadun.
Professional Surnames: What Your Ancestors Did
A smaller but important category of Italian Jewish surnames preserves an ancestral occupation or religious role.
The two most distinctive are Sacerdote / Sacerdoti / Sacerdotti and Levi / Levy / Lévi. Sacerdote is the Italian translation of Kohen descendants of the priestly caste of the Temple. Levi identifies the broader Levitical lineage. Both names are about as close as Italian Jewish onomastics gets to a "guarantee" of Jewish ancestry, since gentile Italians had no reason to adopt them.
Variants and related forms include Coen, Cohen, Coenca, Cohn, Kahn (for Kohen) and Levy, Lewy, Levi Bianchini, Levi-Cases, Levi Minzi, Levi de Veali, Vitalevi (for Levi).
Other professional or rabbinic-origin surnames:
The two most distinctive are Sacerdote / Sacerdoti / Sacerdotti and Levi / Levy / Lévi. Sacerdote is the Italian translation of Kohen descendants of the priestly caste of the Temple. Levi identifies the broader Levitical lineage. Both names are about as close as Italian Jewish onomastics gets to a "guarantee" of Jewish ancestry, since gentile Italians had no reason to adopt them.
Variants and related forms include Coen, Cohen, Coenca, Cohn, Kahn (for Kohen) and Levy, Lewy, Levi Bianchini, Levi-Cases, Levi Minzi, Levi de Veali, Vitalevi (for Levi).
Other professional or rabbinic-origin surnames:
- Meldola — a rabbinic dynasty associated with the city of the same name.
- Astrologo / Dello Strologo — astronomer/astrologer.
- Sofer / Schreiber — scribe (the Italian families using these names are typically Ashkenazi).
- Gabbai — synagogue treasurer/officer.
- Rabbino, Rabbello — rabbi.
- Servi, Servadio — "servant of God."
- Procaccia — a postal courier/agent for the Jewish community.
- Orefice / Orefici — goldsmith. Among Sephardim and Anusim particularly common, since metalwork was a permitted profession.
- Sarfati / Zarfati — "the Frenchman" (literally; from Tzarfat, Hebrew for France).
- Tedeschi / Tedesco — "the German."
- Spagnoletto / Spagnolo — "the Spaniard."
Anusim Surnames: The Hidden Jews of Calabria, Sicily, and the South
Now we come to the most overlooked and most contested category. After the 1492 Spanish expulsion (which applied to Sicily, then under Aragonese rule) and the 1541 Neapolitan expulsion, southern Italian Jewish communities largely went underground. Their descendants the Anusim adopted surnames specifically designed not to mark them as Jews. This makes their identification a matter of pattern recognition rather than direct etymology.
Researchers like Rabbi Barbara Aiello (Sinagoga Ner Tamid del Sud) and Professor Vincenzo Villella (author of La Judeca di Nicastro e la storia degli ebrei in Calabria) have spent decades cross-referencing Inquisition trial records, expulsion lists, town archives, and surname clusters. Their work is not without critics some scholars argue the lists are too inclusive and capture many genuinely Christian families but the central insight is sound: certain surnames cluster heavily in towns with documented Jewish or crypto-Jewish populations, and they are vastly more frequent there than chance would predict.
Below is a synthesis of categories from this body of research. Important: any single name on this list can also belong to a fully Christian Italian family. The presence of the surname in your tree is a starting point for research, not a conclusion.ss: Barone, Caracciolo, Carafa, D'Aquino, Filomarino, Monforte. (Most bearers of these surnames are not Jewish; the names entered the Anusim pool only through specific historical connections.)
Researchers like Rabbi Barbara Aiello (Sinagoga Ner Tamid del Sud) and Professor Vincenzo Villella (author of La Judeca di Nicastro e la storia degli ebrei in Calabria) have spent decades cross-referencing Inquisition trial records, expulsion lists, town archives, and surname clusters. Their work is not without critics some scholars argue the lists are too inclusive and capture many genuinely Christian families but the central insight is sound: certain surnames cluster heavily in towns with documented Jewish or crypto-Jewish populations, and they are vastly more frequent there than chance would predict.
Below is a synthesis of categories from this body of research. Important: any single name on this list can also belong to a fully Christian Italian family. The presence of the surname in your tree is a starting point for research, not a conclusion.ss: Barone, Caracciolo, Carafa, D'Aquino, Filomarino, Monforte. (Most bearers of these surnames are not Jewish; the names entered the Anusim pool only through specific historical connections.)
Anusim Toponymic Surnames (Southern Italy)
After the 1492–1493 expulsions from Sicily and the 1541 expulsion from Naples, Sicilian and Calabrian Jews who fled across the Strait of Messina to mainland Calabria — or who simply moved towns to escape Inquisition records — were renamed for their place of origin. According to Calabrian researchers, these surnames did not exist in mainland Calabria before February 1493: Messina, Palermo, Trapani, Siracusa, Piazza, Caccamo, Mineo, Lofaro, Catalano, Di Lentini, Di Napoli, Di Nola, Di Rende, Amantea, Montalto, Napoli, Pistoia, Salerno, Spagnolo, Staiti, Viterbo, Capua, Greco, Milano (in southern contexts), Renda, De Rose, Pugliese, Siciliano.
Anusim Translated Surnames (Hebrew → Italian)
A clever strategy of crypto-Jewish families was to translate Hebrew names directly into Italian, preserving family memory while passing as Catholic:
Other names in this category that recur in Calabrian Anusim research include Diamante, Gentile, Gioia, Del Vecchio, Del Giudice, Ricca, Ventura, Buono.
Hebrew Original | Italian Surname | Meaning |
Tov / Bonfilio | Buono, Bonanno, Bonfiglio | "Good" / "Good year" (Shana Tova) |
Yafe | Bello, Bellini | "Beautiful" |
Chayim | Vitale, Vita | "Life" |
Aryeh | Leone | "Lion" |
Tzvi | Cervi, Cervetti | "Deer" |
Mazal | Fortuna, Ventura | "Fortune" |
Shoshana | Rosa | "Rose" |
Perach / Tzitz | Fiore | "Flower" |
Kochav | Stella | "Star" |
Yehiel | Vivante, Vivanti | "May he live" |
Naki / Tahor | Tranquillo | "Pure / Calm" |
Yakar | Caro, Mascaro | "Dear / Precious" |
Anania | Anania | Hebrew name preserved |
Shalom | Salomone, Salama, Pace | "Peace" |
Other names in this category that recur in Calabrian Anusim research include Diamante, Gentile, Gioia, Del Vecchio, Del Giudice, Ricca, Ventura, Buono.
Anusim "Devout Catholic" Surnames
Some converso families went the opposite direction, adopting names so emphatically Christian that no inquisitor would suspect them. Rabbi Aiello documents these among Calabrian Bnei Anusim: Aiutamicristo ("help me, Christ"), Cristiano, DeSantis, Gesualdo, Boncristiano, Santini, Salvador, Della Croce.
Anusim Noble Surnames
Crypto-Jewish families sometimes adopted the surnames of noble families who served as their godparents at conversion or with whom they did business: Barone, Caracciolo, Carafa, D'Aquino, Filomarino, Monforte. (Most bearers of these surnames are not Jewish; the names entered the Anusim pool only through specific historical connections.)
Anusim Patronymics
In southern Italy, patronymics (names from a father's name) were sometimes adopted by Anusim families to blend in with general Italian naming patterns: D'Alessandro, De Masi, De Pascali, De Pasquale, Di Giacomo, Di Giovanni, Di Matteo. Once again, most bearers of these names are not Jewish but specific village clusters often are.
Calabrian Anusim Villages
Rabbi Aiello's research focuses on towns where Jewish heritage is unusually concentrated. A non-exhaustive list includes Serrastretta, Nicastro (Lamezia Terme), Bova Marina, Reggio Calabria, Catanzaro, Cosenza, Mandatoriccio, Amantea, Montalto Uffugo, and the Aeolian Islands. If your family hails from one of these towns and bears any of the surnames above, the research probability rises significantly.
How Italian Jewish Surnames Changed in America
When Italian Jewish families emigrated to the United States most heavily between 1880 and 1924 Ellis Island clerks, employers, neighbors, and the families themselves often adjusted spellings to fit English orthography. Some of the most common transformations:
Sephardic Italian families that had already passed through Iberia often had names that were "American-ready": Pinto, Lopez, Cardoso, Mendes, Pereira, Castro required no adjustment.
Anusim families from southern Italy almost universally arrived with their Christian-sounding surnames intact. This is precisely why Italian-American genealogy in the 21st century has become a quiet motor for Anusim heritage rediscovery: a Brooklyn family named Greco or Romano whose ancestors came from Cosenza or Reggio Calabria has roughly the same statistical chance of carrying Jewish ancestry as any other family from those regions which, per Rabbi Aiello's research, may be substantial.
Italian Original | American Form |
Levi | Levy, Levey, Levi |
Coen / Cohen | Cohen, Cohn, Kohen |
Sacerdoti | (rarely changed; sometimes Saccardi) |
Modigliani | Modigliani, Modigliano |
Pontecorvo | Pontecorvo |
Foà | Foa, Foah, Fox (rare) |
Treves | Treves, Treves |
Anau | Anau, Anaw |
De Rossi | De Rossi, Rossi, Ross |
D'Ancona | D'Ancona, Dancona, Ancona |
Tedeschi | Tedeschi, Teschi, Tedeshi |
Bassani | Bassani, Bassan |
Ottolenghi | Ottolenghi, Otto, Lenghi |
Jacchia | Jacchia, Jacchi, Jackia |
Sephardic Italian families that had already passed through Iberia often had names that were "American-ready": Pinto, Lopez, Cardoso, Mendes, Pereira, Castro required no adjustment.
Anusim families from southern Italy almost universally arrived with their Christian-sounding surnames intact. This is precisely why Italian-American genealogy in the 21st century has become a quiet motor for Anusim heritage rediscovery: a Brooklyn family named Greco or Romano whose ancestors came from Cosenza or Reggio Calabria has roughly the same statistical chance of carrying Jewish ancestry as any other family from those regions which, per Rabbi Aiello's research, may be substantial.
A Crucial Caveat: What a Surname Does and Doesn't Prove
Before you write to your cousins announcing newly discovered Jewish roots, internalize three principles that every serious researcher repeats.
First, a surname is patrilineal; halakhic Jewishness is matrilineal. Under traditional Jewish law, religious identity passes from mother to child. A purely paternal Jewish lineage even one stretching back to the Roman Empire does not, in itself, make a descendant Jewish in the eyes of an Orthodox or Conservative beit din. (Reform and Reconstructionist movements often accept patrilineal descent under certain conditions.)
Second, the same surname can have multiple origins. A "Milano" in Lombardy may simply be a Milanese Christian family who moved to a smaller town; a "Milano" in Calabria, hundreds of kilometers from Milan, has a much higher probability of being a Sicilian-Jewish exile family who adopted the name post-1493. Ferrara is not a Jewish toponym in southern Italy at all it derives from ferraro (blacksmith) and is professional, not geographic. Names like Greco, Russo, Romano, Bruno, Mazza, Gentile are pan-Italian and worn overwhelmingly by non-Jewish families. A surname is a clue, not a verdict.
Third, mixed marriages, conversions, and centuries of separation make surname-only conclusions fragile. A famously Jewish Italian surname might be carried today by a family that converted to Catholicism in 1600 and has had no Jewish identification since. Conversely, a family that has been Catholic for fifteen generations might have a Jewish maternal ancestor whose Hebrew name was never recorded.
What surnames do offer is a directional signal a place to begin. The serious work of genealogical research involves:
First, a surname is patrilineal; halakhic Jewishness is matrilineal. Under traditional Jewish law, religious identity passes from mother to child. A purely paternal Jewish lineage even one stretching back to the Roman Empire does not, in itself, make a descendant Jewish in the eyes of an Orthodox or Conservative beit din. (Reform and Reconstructionist movements often accept patrilineal descent under certain conditions.)
Second, the same surname can have multiple origins. A "Milano" in Lombardy may simply be a Milanese Christian family who moved to a smaller town; a "Milano" in Calabria, hundreds of kilometers from Milan, has a much higher probability of being a Sicilian-Jewish exile family who adopted the name post-1493. Ferrara is not a Jewish toponym in southern Italy at all it derives from ferraro (blacksmith) and is professional, not geographic. Names like Greco, Russo, Romano, Bruno, Mazza, Gentile are pan-Italian and worn overwhelmingly by non-Jewish families. A surname is a clue, not a verdict.
Third, mixed marriages, conversions, and centuries of separation make surname-only conclusions fragile. A famously Jewish Italian surname might be carried today by a family that converted to Catholicism in 1600 and has had no Jewish identification since. Conversely, a family that has been Catholic for fifteen generations might have a Jewish maternal ancestor whose Hebrew name was never recorded.
What surnames do offer is a directional signal a place to begin. The serious work of genealogical research involves:
- Civil and parish records (matching specific ancestors to specific towns)
- Inquisition records (especially in Calabria, Sicily, Naples, and Spain)
- Historic Jewish community archives (Roman Jewish records are particularly rich)
- DNA testing (Ashkenazi and Sephardic markers can sometimes appear even where the paper trail is broken)
- Family oral history (cooking customs, holiday traditions, Hebrew words used as dialect Rabbi Aiello documents Calabrian families using chametz for "breadcrumbs," not realizing the word is Hebrew)
Where to Go From Here
If you suspect Italian Jewish ancestry through a surname, a family story, a half-remembered grandparent, or a custom that feels older than any Christian tradition you know the most important step is to not try to settle the question from the surname alone. Treat the name as the first sentence of a story that needs the rest of its archive.
Useful starting points include the Centro Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea (CDEC) in Milan, the Italian Jewish Cultural Center of Calabria (IjCCC) for southern Italian heritage, parish and civil records of the specific town your family came from, and JewishGen's Italian resources. Genetic testing companies (23andMe, MyHeritage, AncestryDNA) report Sephardic and Ashkenazi markers with reasonable specificity, though results can be ambiguous for Italkim heritage, which is genetically distinct from both.
What an Italian Jewish surname really gives you is permission to ask a question your family may have stopped asking centuries ago. Whether the answer turns out to be a Roman family that has been in Italy since the time of Titus, a Sephardic merchant lineage from Toledo to Livorno, an Ashkenazi rabbinic dynasty that crossed the Alps, or a Calabrian Anusim family that lit Shabbat candles in a hidden cantina the question is worth asking. The names have been waiting.
Useful starting points include the Centro Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea (CDEC) in Milan, the Italian Jewish Cultural Center of Calabria (IjCCC) for southern Italian heritage, parish and civil records of the specific town your family came from, and JewishGen's Italian resources. Genetic testing companies (23andMe, MyHeritage, AncestryDNA) report Sephardic and Ashkenazi markers with reasonable specificity, though results can be ambiguous for Italkim heritage, which is genetically distinct from both.
What an Italian Jewish surname really gives you is permission to ask a question your family may have stopped asking centuries ago. Whether the answer turns out to be a Roman family that has been in Italy since the time of Titus, a Sephardic merchant lineage from Toledo to Livorno, an Ashkenazi rabbinic dynasty that crossed the Alps, or a Calabrian Anusim family that lit Shabbat candles in a hidden cantina the question is worth asking. The names have been waiting.
Curious about your own surname? Start with a conversation.
The work of tracing an Italian Jewish surname is part archive, part oral history, part patient detective work. If your family name appears in this guide, or if you've always suspected something deeper in your roots, the next step isn't a database it's a conversation. Tell us your surname and your family's town of origin, and we'll help you decide which thread is worth pulling.
The first conversation is ours to offer.
A complimentary 30-minute video call. Bring what you remember — names, places, stories, fragments. We listen. Then, in time, we propose what we believe is possible.
