Surnames spelled differently in same town?

[olleromaj]

Hi, I am brand new here. This is my first post. I hope I am doing this correctly!

I am currently researching my husband's ancestors from Sciacca in Sicily. The last name I am researching is Amorello. However, I am noticing that there are some birth records that spell the name differently as Amorelli.

Does anyone know if this is common in that town? I know that the spelling of many Italian surnames were changed after immigrants came to the US, but I am not sure what I am looking at when I find both spellings in the records from Sciacca, in Italian. Are these two, distinct family surnames?

Thanks so much!

[olleromaj]

What is the process for getting this post approved by a monitor?

[PippoM]

In the 1800's surnames were still quite "liquid"; I mean, as people did not have personal documents (ID cards...), the spelling of the surname was affected by what the declarant knew, by the way he spoke (they often had serious pronounciation problems, because of stutter, or of missing teeth, for example), by dialect. So, it's easy to find various spellings of surname for the same person, not necessarily for a change in the USA.

[Italysearcher]

Also Amorello is singular and Amorelli is the plural form.