Sicilian Last Names: Meanings, Origins & 3,000 Years

How Sicily’s history shaped its surnames

Sicily’s surname history reflects its position in the Mediterranean and the many languages used there over time. Greek, Latin, Arabic, Norman, Spanish, and Arbëreshë connections offer leads to investigate in individual names and family records.

These layers offer leads for family-history research, but a surname alone does not establish where a particular ancestor lived. Start with records that identify the person and town, then investigate the name in that local context.

Girolamo Caracausi’s Dizionario onomastico della Sicilia is a principal reference for this guide. The sections below discuss proposed origins, identify disagreements, and include the names associated with Sicily’s Arbëreshë communities.

This is a companion to our complete guide to Italian surnames — start there for the five origin categories and the Ellis Island myth; this page goes deep on Sicily.

Twenty-five Sicilian surnames and their origins

The table combines commonly listed surnames with examples of different linguistic origins. Figures from surname-distribution websites describe their own datasets; they should not be treated as a current census of individuals.

The top of the list tells the whole story in miniature: Russo (a Latin nickname for red hair), Messina (a Greek place), Caruso (a Sicilian word for a mine-boy), Lombardo (a northern migrant), Marino (the sea). Five names, four different origin layers.

Layer 1 — The Greek foundation

Sicily was Magna Graecia, Greater Greece, from the eighth century BC, and Byzantine Greek-speakers held parts of the island into the Norman era. The Greek layer runs deep:

• Greco — simply "the Greek," marking Greek descent or adherence to the Byzantine rite.
• Messina — from the city of Messina.
• Foti — from Greek Photios, "light."
• Maffei / Maffeo — from the Doric Greek form of Matthew.
• Romeo — "pilgrim," from the Byzantine Greek term, common in northeastern Sicily and Calabria.

Endings such as -aci and some -eo forms may indicate Greek roots.

Layer 2 — The Latin/Roman substratum

Beneath everything sits Latin, the language Sicily never fully lost. The most common island surnames are Latin at root: Russo (russus, red), Marino (marinus, of the sea, or the name Marinus), Vitale (Vitalis, "full of life"), Salvatore (Saviour), Bello / Bella (bellus, beautiful), Grasso (stout). The timing of hereditary surname use varied by place and family. Parish registers can help trace that history where records survive. Carla Marcato, “Cognomi,” Treccani.

Layer 3 — The Arab centuries (831–1091)

For roughly 250 years Sicily was an Arab emirate, and the island spoke Siculo-Arabic — an Arabic dialect whose only living descendant today is Maltese. The Arab layer is real but frequently exaggerated by popular name sites, so here we lean on the scholarship and flag what's debated.

Well-supported Arabic-origin Sicilian surnames include:

• Vadalà (and Badalà) — from the Arabic theophoric name ʿAbd Allāh, "servant of God."
• Sciortino — from Sicilian sciurta, "city watchman," from Arabic šurṭiyy, "policeman."
• Morabito — from Arabic murābiṭ, a holy man or hermit.
• Sodano — from Arabic sawdān (dark) or sultan.
• Favara — from Arabic fawwāra, "spring, fountain" (also a town name).
• Gangemi, Buscemi, Saladino, Zarcone — Arabic-rooted per onomastic dictionaries.

Debated (treat with caution): Zappalà and Fragalà are often given romantic "of God" translations, but the etymologies are contested and some proposed Arabic derivations fail on linguistic grounds. We mention them as possibly Arabic rather than asserting it.

And a correction worth making, because you'll see it repeated everywhere: Conti, Farina, and Rizzo are not Arabic. Conti is "counts" (Latin), Farina is "flour / miller" (Latin), Rizzo is "curly" (Latin ericius). Several popular sites miscategorize them; the scholarship does not.

Layer 4 — The Normans, Swabians, and Spanish

The Normans took Sicily in the eleventh century and Latinized it — Christianizing the administration and, over the 14th–15th centuries, pressuring Muslim families to Latinize their names. Norman/French-rooted surnames include De Luca, De Rosa, Provenzano, and Giuffrida (from the Norman-Germanic Goffredo, Geoffrey).

Then came the Aragonese and Spanish, who ruled for centuries. Their mark: Catalano ("the Catalan"), Randazzo, Mirabella, and Spanish-inflected forms of saints' names.

The Arbëreshë communities of Sicily

In the fifteenth century, as the Ottoman Empire overran the Balkans, Albanian refugees — the Arbëreshë — fled across the Adriatic and founded colonies in southern Italy and Sicily. The largest is Piana degli Albanesi, near Palermo, settled in 1488. Five centuries later, its people still speak Arbëresh (an old form of Albanian) and worship in the Byzantine rite.

These surnames are associated with Arbëreshë communities in Sicily. They can suggest a research lead, but a name alone does not establish an individual's ancestry:

• Schirò, Matranga, Mandalà, Stassi, Cuccia, Petta, Plescia, Guzzetta, Camarda.

These names cluster in the Albanian towns and carry telltale traits — stressed final vowels (Schirò, Camalò) and the -sc- cluster. The Arbëreshë produced their own literary tradition: Lekë Matrënga (Luca Matranga, 1569–1619), whose 1592 catechism is the oldest Albanian text written in the diaspora. For a family named Matranga today, that history offers context to investigate; a connection to a particular person or community still needs records.

The La, Lo, and Li article-surnames

The articles La, Lo, and Li appear in many Sicilian and southern Italian surnames.

• Lo (masculine): Lo Russo, Lo Bianco, Lo Cascio, Lo Giudice ("the judge"), Lo Monaco ("the monk").
• La (feminine): La Rosa, La Barbera, La Mantia, La Piana.
• Li (plural): Li Causi, Li Greci.

Often the article sits in front of a trade or trait — Lo Giudice, the judge's household; La Rosa, the rose. These forms offer a regional clue that should be checked against the family’s records.

What your Sicilian surname can tell you — and how to trace it

Use a Sicilian surname as a starting clue, then test possible family connections against records. FamilySearch's Italy research foundations begin with the ancestral town, followed by civil and church records. The method:

1. 1.Recover the original spelling from ship manifests and naturalization papers (names were Americanized in the US, not "changed at Ellis Island" — see our main surnames guide).
2. 2.Use a proposed linguistic origin to frame a question, then test it against the person’s documented town and relatives.
3. 3.Use the province clusters. Rizzo and Gambino lean Trapani; Caruso and Privitera, Catania; the Albanian names, the towns around Palermo.
4. 4.Go to the records. Sicilian civil registration began in 1820. Check Antenati for the state archives’ digitized civil-status records. For church records, consult the relevant parish, diocesan archive, or an identified digitized collection. Coverage and dates vary by place.

The history of a surname can suggest questions to ask. Document your family's connection generation by generation before linking it to a particular community or historical figure.

Use our guide to finding an Italian ancestral town in U.S. records and resource directory to plan your next research step.

Sources

• Enzo Caffarelli, "Regione per regione, i cognomi italiani: Calabria, Sicilia e Sardegna," Treccani.
• Metropolitan City of Messina, "Messina e il suo Territorio".
• Girolamo Caracausi, Dizionario onomastico della Sicilia (Centro di studi filologici e linguistici siciliani, Palermo, 1993).
• Emidio De Felice, Dizionario dei cognomi italiani (Mondadori, 1978).
• Enzo Caffarelli & Carla Marcato, I cognomi d'Italia (UTET, 2008).
• Cognomix.it / gens.labo.net (surname frequency data — families, not individuals).
• MyHeritage Wiki: Sicilian surnames, Italo-Albanian surnames; Italy Heritage (Piana degli Albanesi frequency list).
• University of Malta, "Late Medieval Maltese Surnames of Arabic and Greek Origin" (peer-reviewed; cites Caracausi).
• Behind the Name (Sicilian surname etymologies).