Our own Maddie (Madeline Vitella) tried to get some answers from Myron and myself. In this case she came to the wrong people. We are both part of the “fruitless”. So she went on her quest all alone. I’ll let her explain…
A Bit of Italian Custom
In an effort to find out as much as possible about “our boys” I attempted to find out their middle names. It stands to reason that they would have middle names, right? What Italian practicing Catholic doesn’t take their sponsor’s name when they make their Confirmation?
I went crazy trying to figure out how I could get that information (since I’m not friends with any of them on FB). My search, however, was fruitless.
One of our instructors at my Italian Language class is from Italy, so I asked him if Italian boys take middle names at Confirmation (since I couldn’t find their middle names on the internet) and to my surprise he told me they do not. I then asked him what the custom is for men taking their mother’s maiden names after their own name, such as Ignazio Boschetto Licari (Licari being his mother’s maiden name). My source told me that this custom is not carried throughout all of Italy; he said that certain regions have carried that custom on from the Spaniards who once inhabited the area in which they reside. I’m taking the word of a true Italian.
What I WAS able to find out though, is that Piero’s mother’s maiden name is Oglebene, and Gianluca’s mother’s maiden name is DiVittorio.
If anyone has any other information about this custom, please let us know.
And then I found this article:
Italy: Law requiring use of father’s surname ‘discriminatory’
Children of married couples in Italy will be allowed to carry their mother’s surname, after a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
The court found that the country’s practice of automatically registering a child under the father’s surname was “patriarchal” and “discriminatory”.
Judges have ordered Italy to change the law, which dates back to the Roman era.
The case began in 1999, when a couple were refused permission to give their daughter the mother’s maiden name.
Alessandra Cusan and Luigi Fazzo appealed against the decision, arguing that there was no provision in Italian law which prevented Maddalena from bearing the maternal surname.
But the court dismissed the appeal on the basis that the rule “corresponded to a principle rooted in social consciousness and in Italian history”.
The couple won a minor victory in 2012, when authorities in the city of Milan allowed Maddalena to be called Fazzo Cusan.
But last year the couple decided to took the case to the ECHR in the French city of Strasbourg.
On Tuesday, the ECHR ruled that Italy’s law was incompatible with the principle of gender equality enshrined in Italy’s modern constitution.
The tribunal called the practice “excessively rigid”.
“The child’s father and mother were treated differently… in spite of an agreement between the spouses,” the ECHR said in its ruling.
“The tradition conferring the father’s surname to all the members of a family could not justify discrimination against women.”
Rome will have to change its legislation to comply with the ruling, unless it lodges an appeal with a higher chamber of the European court within three months.
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Thanks Maddie!
Very interesting. We would still like to have the definitive answer to the Boys proper middle names. Let us know.
~Marie
