Residents of a small Italian town where 8,000 people have the same surname have won a legal fight to use their nicknames, which can descend into the derogatory, on official documents.
For more than 200 years, the people of Chioggia near Venice, have used the nicknames to distinguish between distantly related families, but they were never officially recognised.
Now, following a decree from the interior ministry, families in the town will be allowed to adopt their nickname as a second, official surname, the Guardian reports. Some of the more bizarre nicknames include "Mad", "Fat" and "Peasant".
"We fought hard for this so we can avoid a lot of confusion, as well as making filling out forms less complicated," said the mayor, Romano Tiozzo, whose family nickname is "Pagio", or "straw" in local dialect.
Chioggia, at the south end of the Venice lagoon has 8,000 Boscolos and 5,000 Tiozzos out of 52,000 people.
The 300 family nicknames used to distinguish between the various Boscolos and Tiozzos often recall trades or character traits, including Schilla, a lagoon shrimp, and Femminella, or effeminate. Tiozzo's opponent in the last mayoral election was Lucio Tiozzo "Fasiolo", dialect for "bean". Interior ministry undersecretary Michelino Davico said: "If we find similar situations in other towns we will also consider sorting them out."
No comments:
Post a Comment