History of the surname Smeraldi
In the last few years I have studied the
history of the surname Smeraldi, which is quite rare and not well documented.
Those of you who do not speak Italian may find interesting
to learn that the word means "emeralds".
While I was studying history at the university I read many books about surnames, but I never found anything relevant.
The famous Italian encyclopedia "Treccani" cites some people called Smeraldi, but does not give any indication about the origins of the surname.
Near Bologna there is a palace called Villa Smeraldi, but the ancient owners do not appear to have been members of a particularly important family.
The most valuable data I have found come from my studies on the genealogy of my own family. Indeed, only looking at the documents in the archives it is possible to come to some degree of certainty, and not to mere hypotheses.
Regarding my family, I have found documents about Francesco Smeraldi, born in 1819 and son of Giobatta Smeraldi; I could not proceed further into the past.
My hypothesis is that the surname Smeraldi was invented, and first used to name some orphan child.
Reading the registers of baptism dating from the last century it easy to see that this situation was quite common.
The use of invented surnames could help to avoid confusion with the legacies. If this is the case, then the various Smeraldi families exsisting in Italy are not related.
I think that it would be useful to study surnames with a similar meaning like "Diamante" (diamond) and "Rubino" (ruby), to understand their origin. The Italian website Gens provides a map with the distribution of the surname Smeraldi in Italy. It can be interesting to note that there are Smeraldis in many parts of Italy, but always in small numbers.
If you have made studies on the history of the Smeraldi family and have other information, e-mail me and I will update this page.
While I was studying history at the university I read many books about surnames, but I never found anything relevant.
The famous Italian encyclopedia "Treccani" cites some people called Smeraldi, but does not give any indication about the origins of the surname.
Near Bologna there is a palace called Villa Smeraldi, but the ancient owners do not appear to have been members of a particularly important family.
The most valuable data I have found come from my studies on the genealogy of my own family. Indeed, only looking at the documents in the archives it is possible to come to some degree of certainty, and not to mere hypotheses.
Regarding my family, I have found documents about Francesco Smeraldi, born in 1819 and son of Giobatta Smeraldi; I could not proceed further into the past.
My hypothesis is that the surname Smeraldi was invented, and first used to name some orphan child.
Reading the registers of baptism dating from the last century it easy to see that this situation was quite common.
The use of invented surnames could help to avoid confusion with the legacies. If this is the case, then the various Smeraldi families exsisting in Italy are not related.
I think that it would be useful to study surnames with a similar meaning like "Diamante" (diamond) and "Rubino" (ruby), to understand their origin. The Italian website Gens provides a map with the distribution of the surname Smeraldi in Italy. It can be interesting to note that there are Smeraldis in many parts of Italy, but always in small numbers.
If you have made studies on the history of the Smeraldi family and have other information, e-mail me and I will update this page.
This file was last modified on the 12/25/06