This was fantastic.

I'm 25, and 4th generation here in America and I understood that entire thing. I always tell people the only Italian that gets passed down in my family is Italian-American slang and curse words.

(btw, we call it sauce. I'm from Jersey. Guess it depends where you're from in ...

haha, no hate, but our name is now 100x more associated with her than its true meanings (literally "my lady", or you could go the religious route)

Btw, in our case, Madonna is of Italian origin.

I just would rather not have the first thing anyone thinks of when they hear our surname to be a pop ...

1- I have a special loathing for Madonna, as she took our proud Italian family name and ran it into the ground.

2- As far as modern Italian-American singers, my favorite is Greg Attonito of the punk rock group Bouncing Souls.

3- What about Dion? "Runaway Sue" is a classic.

Wikipedia is actually a pretty good resource for them.

I found the coat of arms for Napoli ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naples ), and Calabria ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calabria ), my family's points of origin