The Origins of the Name Falcioni

(In Italiano)

(Last update 03/15/2004 - author Marco Falcioni)

Nota Bene: this page contains speculative ideas. If you happen to read this page, and were to find omissions, errors or complete bulls*it, you are kindly requested to let me know. I'll make sure to correct what I can (or should).

On September 19th 2003 I wondered where my surname originally came from. I found a simple and efficient way to answer the question, or at least to approach the issue: the website of the Italian  white pages (phone book). The methodology is quite simple: you enter a surname and a region, province or city, and you get the number if users.

The Falcioni surname is distributed on the Italian peninsula according to the following table (as of 9/19/03):

Region Users Marche 497 Lazio 194 Piemonte 90 Toscana 44 Emilia Romagna 36 Lombardia 27 Umbria 22 Abruzzo 12 Puglia 12 Friuli Venezia Giulia 9 Liguria 7 Veneto 6 Calabria 1 Molise 1 Sardegna 1 Trentino 1 Basilicata 0 Campania 0 Sicilia 0 Val D'Aosta 0 Source paginebianche.it, 9/19/2003

The first data point that emerges from the table is that the Falcionis are quite conclusively from the region of Marche (in pale green in the picture above, on the east coast, opposite to Tuscany). I am from there as well: I was born in Pesaro, as were my parents, and my grandparents on my father side are from Fano.

The analysis of how the data is subdivided by province (each region is divided in several provinces) produces interesting anomalies. These are the results, province by province for Marche:

Each province has a "capoluogo" and several other "comuni" (township), and this is the breakdown:

This table gives weight to the hypothesis that the Falcionis are from Fano. Obviously they migrated through the years, more so towards Pesaro (12km or 7mi to the north) than towards Ancona (50km/30mi to the south).  San Benedetto del Tronto is a small oasis on the Adriatic and it shows. The other provinces have high user numbers, but they are evenly spread over the townships.

The other Italian regions that have more than twenty users are broken down in the following table:

There are several interesting patterns: Verbania is perhaps the most anomalous one. Rome and Florence are common destinations for the ones who seek fame and fortune, or just a steady job in the big city. The Marche used to be under the Church State, and this may explain the large number of families in Rome. Turning back to Verbania: how can we explain the very high number of Falcioni families there? Perhaps the public construction works for the  tunnel under Monte Sempione nearby, opened in 1906, could explain a large migration to that region.

Mr Walter Falcioni, who lives near Verbania, contacted me recently and says that in that area there are many independent Falcioni Families, and they think that the name is local to the Ossola Valley. This is certainly possible, since the name Falcioni comes from a common object, the sickle (falce in italian) and it could have been adopted as a surname there as well.  Finally, Walter adds that there are Falcionis in Switzerland and Argentina, where there are lots and lots of Italians.