Enzo Lucchetti

The Border Effect in Surname Structure: An Italian-Slovenian Case Study

Abstract n Population surname structure in northeastern Italy municipalities, in which small Slovenian-speaking groups are present, are compared with neighboring populations of both Italian and Slovenian nationality. In the early 20th century those municipalities were part of the Italian territory and underwent a massive Italianization process that led to the mutation of the original Slovenian surnames into a derived Italian form. In order to track surname relationships among the examined communities, two different similarity analyses were performed: the first using the surnames as they are recorded in the Italian and Slovenian official telephone directories, and the second restoring the Italianized Slovenian surnames to their original form and then recalculating the populations similarity. Both comparisons evidence a separation that depends on nationality, which is less marked after restoring surnames to their original form. Geographical elements, older historical events, and socioeconomic traits allow interpretation of these results.

Distribution of surnames over the Alto Adige-Südtirol region according to local geographic, historical and linguistic features

This paper aims at analysing the distribution of surnames over the Alto Adige-Südtirol, which is an Italian alpine sub-region coinciding with the province of Bolzano-Bozen. Two thirds of the Alto Adige-Südtirol inhabitants are German mother-tongue, whereas the remaining one third is Italian mother-tongue. There is also a minority represented by Ladin-speaking people. Analyses were carried out using a similarity index between different populations, resulting from heads of family surnames distribution over the area. The specificity of the most frequent surnames was also studied. Mapping of surnames took place at municipality level. Municipality populations were grouped according to their valley of residence and territorial geologic and morphological features. The results were interpreted also in the light of historical events and the presence of specific languages or dialects. The geographic neighbourhood, the geo-morphological features of the territory and the easy individual mobility are the main elements for the relations among people living in the valleys of Alto Adige-Südtirol. The ancient ethno-historical substratum is detectable in the spread of the specific languages and dialects, nevertheless it does not play a discriminative role in the above mentioned relations. The socio-economic factors have contributed both to root the autochthonous people in certain places and to modify the structure of surnames in some valleys.

L'uso dei cognomi nella ricerca biodemografica

L’uso dei cognomi nella ricerca biodemografica L’origine dei cognomi, le loro tipologie, dipendono dal contesto e dalle caratteristiche culturali della popolazione nella quale si sono formati. Dal momento della loro fissazione e con la comparsa di norme specifiche che ne regolano la trasmissione essi sono divenuti assimilabili a caratteri genetici e possono essere indagati come tali. I cognomi possono cosi contribuire a definire l’identita di una popolazione che e al tempo stesso culturale e biologica: la loro tipologia, il loro numero, la distribuzione per frequenza si rivelano dati assai utili – facili da rilevare e ricchi di informazione – per lo studio delle popolazioni umane. La conoscenza infatti della struttura per cognomi permette di sviluppare analisi sulla struttura interna della popolazione, sulla variabilita in essa presente, sul grado di isolamento, sulle modalita di formazione delle coppie, sul comportamento matrimoniale, sui flussi migratori sia in entrata che in uscita. La estendibilita della rilevazione dei cognomi a generazioni del passato consente di inferire sui meccanismi e sulle modalita di evoluzione di una popolazione e di osservare in modo concreto le trasformazioni da essa subite nel tempo. Sulla base della probabilita che individui presi a caso tra piu popolazioni portino lo stesso cognome e possibile valutare il grado di diversificazione o di similarita tra esse esistente. Possono cosi essere tratte inferenze sulle relazioni che tra esse intercorrono o che si sono verificate nel passato: se le popolazioni derivano da una comune matrice culturale, come si sono differenziate nel tempo, se tra esse vi e stato, e in quale misura, interscambio di individui. Biodemographic research using surname data The origin of surnames, and their different typologies, depends on the context and cultural features of the population in which they formed. Since their fixation and the establishment of specific norms regulating their transmission, they are assimilable to allelic forms of the same gene and analyzable accordingly. Surnames can therefore be useful in defining the “identity” of a given population, which is cultural and biological at the same time. Their typology, number, frequency distribution can be consequently used to describe and study human populations. The knowledge of the surname structure allow the researcher to carry out analyses on the internalxa0structure of the population, its variability, isolation degree, marriage pattern, estimate of migrations, etc. The possibility to study also historical populations, starting from the period of fixation of surnames, allow to make hypotheses on the forms and mechanisms of evolution and to describe really the structural changes of populations over time. The probability to find two people in different populations carrying the same surname makes possible to evaluate the distance between two (or more) populations. Hypotheses can then be drawn on their interrelationships in the past, how, for example, they differentiated each other over time, and what amount of migratory flows occurred among them.