Italian name change document

[poliquie]

My cousin shared with me the name change document for our Vitelli family members from 1909. I believe I got it translated pretty well, and see that it refers to the requester Francesco Saverio Vitiello, and his 9 siblings, Maria Francesca, Crescenzo, Giuseppe, Anna, Enrico, Elisa, Raffaele, Vincenzo and Amerigo, all born in Torre Del Greco. They changed their name from Vitiello to Vitelli.

The question I have is that prior to 1909, the family was already using the name Vitelli, is this normal that they would use the name prior to legally changing it?

This branch of the family is the founder of the F. Vitelli & sons Tomato company (as well as the Elvea company in Europe) and they started that prior to 1909.


Here my English translation of the document:

Victor Emanuel III
By the Grace of God and by the Will of the Nation
King of Italy

I have seen the articles 119 and 124 of the Royal Decree from Nov 15, 1865 for the ordering of the civil status; Proposal of Our Keeper of the Seals Minister of Grace, Justice and Cults
We have decreed and we decree:

Vitiello, Francesco Saverio was Francesco Saverio born in Torre del Greco 24 September 1843, and his ten children Maria Francesca, Francesco Saverio, Crescenzo, Giuseppe, Anna, Enrico, Elisa, Raffaele, Vincenzo and Amerigo, were born in Torre del Greco, are authorized to change their surname to Vitelli, and to use it, for the future, in all acts and in all circumstances.


This Decree will be noted in the margin of the birth certificates of the aforementioned persons and transcribed in the current registers of said births of the Municipality. The Aforementioned, Our Security Guard is in charge of executing this decree.

Given in Rome on March 14, 1909

Thanks for any insights you can offer, Eva

[PippoM]

Hi Eva,
till the late XIX century, a surname was not something so "formal" (maybe I'm not using the right word).
I mean, as I said in some other post, it was not so important the surname itself, but the fact that it could identify a person.
In fact, you might find different spellings in the same record, for different members of the family.
The clerks themselves wrote their acts based on the declaration of people who were illiterate and spoke dialect, who didn't know "how a surname was spelled" (if a proper spelling did exist!).
And, as long as that was not an issue, and people were illiterate, noboby raised a problem.
After the unification of Italy, I've found a lot of requests of correction of records. Maybe the Courts started to be more accurate (for instance) for inheritance, or properties, and wanted proof that, let's say, "Carmina Muccardi" was the same person as "Maria Carmela Moccaldi". And every time a sentence had to be issued by a Court, it was an expense! So, for such a numerous family, there must have been a lot of such "errors", and they must have thought to solve them all at once, establishing how the surname was to be spelled. Of course, "Vitiello" is just the dialectal version of "Vitelli".

[mlee84]

Ive been doing my own research for my family too and I am still trying to catch up on it. I know my grabdfather's name was Giuseppe Bevilacqua, but summarizing from what i have found, it looks like my great great grandfather's name on ellis island was written down as "Beve Lacqua" for first, and last name! Is this common?

[PippoM]

I'd say it's really uncommon.
As you may know, the meaning of the surname is "drink water", so maybe someone thought of splitting it.
However, can you provide the Ellis Island manifest, or a link to it?