Italian names are mostly derived from Latin, but since the Italian city-states and modern Italy have always experienced extensive contacts with foreign powers and travellers, many surnames are of Spanish, French, German, Norman or Swiss origin. Beginning in the 14th century, it became necessary to add a second name to distinguish between individuals with the same surname.
Italian surnames are generally easy to recognize because most end in a vowel, like nearly all words in standard Italian, and many of them have been derived from descriptive nicknames.
Italian surnames developed in the most part from four sources: patronym (e.g. Francesco di Marco, "Francis, son of Mark"), occupation (e.g. Giovanni Fabbri, "John the Smith"), personal characteristic (e.g. nicknames or pet names like Dario Forte, "Darius the Strong"), and geographic origin (e.g. Elisabetta Romano, "Elisabeth from Rome").
Few family names are still in the original Latin, and usually they indicate from or with pretensions to antiquity, e.g. Santorum or de Laurentiis. Despite notions of this indicating nobility, it actually reflects that the family name has been preserved from Medieval Latin sources as a part of their business or household documentation or church records.
Usually, family names are written after any given name in most uses. However, the surname is written before given names when used in many official documents (for example, Giovanni Fabbri may be referred to Fabbri Giovanni in official documents). In speech, the use of given name first, family name last is standard.
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