A quick search on Searching the Enhanced Ellis Island Database in One Step using Natale with no variation returns over 2300 persons with the surname arrived through Ellis Island between 1892-1924. By removing the letter e from the end of the name and searching again, the returns are over 3400. By doing a search using it as a first name, which does yield some variations, almost 15,000 hits are returned!
Using Gens-Italia, we find the surname is present in over 956 towns with the highest concentration in the regions of Campania and Lombardy. And of course, if we use Pagine Bianche [the Italian White Pages] to search the surname, we find that 3317 people are listed.

Let’s try the same thing with Grazia. Doing a quick search on Grazia, again with no variation, we find that 3282 immigrants with the surname entered through the New York port. Gens Italia returns the name is still present in 158 towns with the highest concentration in Emilia Romagna while there are only 423 persons listed in the Italian White pages.

The less popular Bifano still returns 119 hits on Ellis Island, found in 72 towns in Italy and 158 hits on the Italian White Pages.

As a side note – while extracting records from various towns in Reggio Calabria, I often noticed that the first names Natale and Natalina were given to persons born either near or on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. I also found that these births, and many births which took place in late December were not registered until January the following year so my advice is that if you are looking for someone named Natale and are having difficulty locating a birth record, try looking in the months of December and January.

Name Meaning and History – Bifano

Southern Italian: from the medieval personal name Epifanio, ultimately from Greek Epiphanios, a derivative of epiphainesthai ‘to appear’, a name typically given to children born on 6th January, with reference to the Christian festival of the Epiphany, which commemorates the manifestation of Christ to the Magi.

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4

Name Meaning – Grazia

Italian form of Grace.

Source: A Dictionary of First Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0192800507

This post is dedicated to my good friend “Biff” and his family who I now consider a part of my very special Gente family. God Bless and Happy Holidays.

Morabito
Last name origin & meaning:
Italian (Sicily): nickname for a teetotaler, Sicilian murabbitu, from Arabic murābịt ‘hermit’, ‘ascetic’.

According to the Genealogy Family Education website, this surname is actually a derivative of the Arabic surname of Murabit meaning hermit.

Facebook has a whole group devoted to this surname – Morabito.. more than a name, a way of life.  with over 170 members and open content.

While searching the Ellis Island Website using my favourite search engine One Step Pages by Stephen Morse and using various spellings, I discovered the surname is most common in parts of Sicily and Reggio Calabria.

More :  Morabit may derive from Arabic morabit “street preacher” but also a specific Arab leader in the 13th century¹.

According to the RES website, the surname appears in 79 out of 380 towns in Calabria.

Source
1. Sicilian Surnames – History and Onomatology
by Luigi Mendola

Names changed for several reason. One such reason was that the immigrant was illiterate and so they could not spell their last name. This resulted in the dropping of some double letters in surnames or in silent letters. Before 1909, passports were not usually used or needed so it was not uncommon for minor spelling errors to occur. You may wonder about birth certificates as well but it was not normal custom for Italians to carry a copy of their birth certificates on them. In fact, rarely did any see their actual birth acts unless they were getting married in Italy and their parents were deceased and in which case they were required to show a copy of their births upon registering to get married. Of course, many immigrants left Italy as young, single men and so had no reason to ever really see their birth records. Not only could this cause issues with the correct spelling of a surname, but also with birth dates as often the actual day a child was born and the day a child was registered were different.

This was not the only reason a surname might change. Some changed their surnames to something that was more Anglicized to help secure work and discourage discrimination. The process was a simple one as no legal documents were necessary. Giovanni Rossi might become John Ross and Vincenzo Valentino might be known as James Valentine. This name change usually only affected the person in the US. He would still be known by his birth name on legal documents or upon traveling.

I will write more on why names changed or how they changed in upcoming posts. Meanwhile, I would be interested in hearing how your name has changed or why it changed.