Italian Surnames – Scarangella

January 17, 2023

Toritto

Via Scarangella Toritto

My cousin Frank asked me about the origins of his name “Scarangella”, so here is what I found.  The Scarangella name originated in Toritto Bari, and for centuries it was only found there.  Now of course, with the ease of travel and migrations to America, it is found in many places around the world.  There are 543 Scarangella’s listed in the Antenati, most of them from Bari.

I found this on a blog and will take it at face value.  If any Scarangella’s read this and have more or different information, please comment below.

Scarangella Initially I thought the name involved an angel (angella) and perhaps a variation of the word “sacred” – sacra in Italian. Southern Italians do have a habit of dropping the first vowel. This however seemed much too simple.  And knowing some of the family I doubt that our surname came from something akin to “holy angel”.

So I went a little deeper.  And was astonished,

Seems our last name is a “pet female variant” of Scaringi – old Norse, rooted in the Scandinavian name Ansigar – which translates to “God Spear”!

The origin of our name is Scandinavian?! Who us??

Apparently Ansigar is the old  Scandinavian form of Ansgar – resulting in myriad forms of the first name Oscar and apparently the origin of our last name as well.   Seems”Scaringi” or “god spear” resulted in some little girl or comely young woman being call “scaringella”, a nickname for a little girl or comely female Scaringi.  Some families still carry the original spelling while others, like ours, changed the “i” to an “a” or more rarely, an “e”.

Now how did a name of Norse origin wind up in Southern Italy?

Well in 1067, one year after the Norman conquest of England, the Normans landed in Bari and took it from the Byzantines after a three year siege.

Now to be fair I have also found the Surname Scaringi in Bari also.

This link will take you to the full post My God are we Norse? 

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