Help with father's name

[Robin B Mc]

Trying to figure out Domenico del Russo's father's name. It says "Domenico di ????? del Russo" so the name where the question marks are should be his father's name, right? I can't figure out what the name is - looks like it starts with a G and the third letter is an s but that's all I can work out. Too short to be Giuseppe and it doesn't look like there's any p's in it anyway. Thanks in advance.

http://mediasvc.ancestry.com/v2/image/n ... nt=TreesUI

[erudita74]

It looks like Gesu which usually has an accent on the u`

Erudita

[AngelaGrace56]

Erudita, I'm reading "Gesuele" and have just checked and this seems to be an Italian male name. Never seen it before though. What do you think?

Hi! by the way.
Angela

[liviomoreno]

I confirm Gesuele, not much used but a valid Italian male name and also a surname

[AngelaGrace56]

I confirm Gesuele, not much used but a valid Italian male name and also a surname

Thanks for the backup Livio.
Angela

[erudita74]

Good job, Angela. Never heard of that male first name.
Erudita

[Robin B Mc]

Thanks everyone! I did notice that Gesu is/was also found in Italian culture too - and there is a slight space in there so that it could be saying "Gesu de del Russo". But I've never seen both a de and del together so I do think it's more likely to be Gesuele. In any case, with some googling, it looks like both Gesuele and Gesu are variants of the same name - they both apparently mean "Yahweh is salvation" and are both Hebrew in origin but used in Italian. Interesting. Does it suggest a possible Jewish origin?

http://www.babynames.ch/Info/Name/naGesu
http://www.name-doctor.com/name-gesuele ... 18921.html

[liviomoreno]

Gesù is Jesus...

[Robin B Mc]

Gesù is Jesus...

And Jesus was Jewish so it makes sense it's a Hebrew name in origin, but I take your point that it probably wasn't a Jewish name by the 18th century.