English Nickname for Gianflavio?

[labiancm]

It appears one of my ancestors, first name Gianflavio, immigrated to the US in the early 1900's. However, he must have changed his first name, since there is no record of a Gianflavio with his last name. Does anyone know what an english nickname for Gianflavio would be?

[Logetting]

This story is about nothing.

[kaygee]

Have you tried John? Perhaps Gianflavio > Gianni > John?

[Anizio]

The first thing you have to realize is that Italian naming conventions are not the same as english. Whenever you seen Gian at the start of the name it is a short form: Gianflavio = Giovanni Flavio.

Technically they are both the exact same so both could be used on records. I have many ancesors in this situation; Gianbattista, Gianfilippo, Domenicantonio, Michelangelo - these names can appear BOTH are two first names, or as a single shortened name. There is no real distinction.

For Giovanni, the english would be John. Unfortunately there is no English translation for Flavio, most languages who do use the name use it as Flavio or Flavius - except German, who translates it as Lain.

So your ancestor could have gone by John, or he could have elected to an entirely made up English name - no way to be sure. I personally always found it weird how American-Italians changed their names. That never really happened in Canada, all the immigrants kept their Italian names.

[labiancm]

Thanks for the reply! I appreciate the time you took to answer. He had an older brother John, so I'm guessing he decided to pick a new name.

thanks again