1. Introduction
2. Some random thoughts
3. Organization of Maltese family names
4. Hull's theory on the Girgenti colony
5. First censuses and classification of names
6. The 2005 census and the most common Maltese names
7. The pantheon of Maltese family names
8. Frequency by location
9. An overview of Gozo
10. The parallel 'Australian' sample
11. Cognates and doublets
12. Multiple names
13. Disappeared names

Organization of Maltese family names

by Mario CASSAR

The distribution of a population's names (typology taking into account number, distribution, frequency, etc.) provides information about the cultural characteristics of that group, its structure, its degree of isolation or openness, its relationships with other populations, migratory exchanges, its history and evolution.

Maltese onomastics, including family names, is very varied, as family names arrived on the island over the centuries following historical and linguistic vicissitudes, all the more so as Malta has always been a crossroads of different populations and languages. Linguists distinguish three major anthroponymic strata in the modern panel of Maltese names: Semitic (Arabic and Hebrew), Romance (Italian, Sicilian, Spanish, French), and English (including Scottish, Irish, Welsh, etc.)

Some of the oldest Maltese family names are Arabic. The local (vernacular) language developed from a medieval variety of dialectal Arabic during the Saracen occupation (870-1091). After the Norman invasion, the indigenous Muslim population, although under Christian influence, maintained its strong cultural and linguistic influence. The expulsion of Muslims in the 13th century, and that of Jews in the 15th century, however caused the definitive break of the powerful cultural ties that linked Malta to Arab-Berber North Africa. From then on, the dominant cultural influence in Malta came from Sicily, Italy and other European countries. The Norman conquest brought the feudal system to Malta, and introduced family names. The Normans (House of Hauteville, 1091-1194) and subsequently the Swabians (House of Hohenstaufen, 1194-1266) introduced a series of continental names, as these new lords, with their relatives and entourage, created their own local communities and began to mingle with the indigenous Semitic population.

Romance names were gradually brought by the Angevins (House of Anjou, 1266 to 1283), the Aragonese (1283-1410), and the Castilians (1410-1530) (15). Quickly under the Angevin period, government representatives were required to keep personal records in the form of surnames and first names. For example, in 1271, the magister and castellan of Malta was asked to document the names and surnames of persons responsible for transporting falcons to the royal court of the island, as well as serfs performing duties for the royal estates. However, the oldest record from the local medieval nomenclature is a certified copy from 1277 of a list of 38 names and surnames of wealthy elite individuals (e.g. Leo Caleya [Calleja] and Nicolas Grecus [Grech]) (16).

Other inventories of names and surnames appear in a Gozitan manuscript of 1299, in which the name Attard appears, and a notarial document of 1324, with the family names Cuschieri and Sciriha (17). These sources, and other 14th century documents, offer information on toponyms, nicknames and family names, but the data is fragmentary. The first important and systematic lists of Maltese names date back to the late Middle Ages; the most important is undoubtedly the Militia roll of 1419/20 and the Angara Roster of the 1480s. The first contains 1870 names, of which 57 belonged to Malta's Jewish community, while the second contains 1466 Christian names and 52 Jewish ones. Some names such as Cagege, Capo, Ponzo, Rifacano, Sardo, and Vaccaro, have since disappeared (18).

However, it seems clear that the majority of typical Maltese family names were already well established - not only those of Semitic origin such as Abdilla, Agius, Asciak, Bajada, Bugeja, Buhagiar, Borg, Busuttil, Buttigieg, Caruana, Cassar, Chetcuti, Ebejer, Farrugia, Fenech, Micallef, Mifsud, Saliba, Zerafa and Zammit, but also others that are clearly of European origin (mainly Sicilian, Italian, Spanish, and Greek) such as Baldacchino, Portelli, Brincat, Bonnici, Cachia, Cardona, Cilia, Dalli, Debono, Formosa, Gatt, Galea, Grima, Aquilina, Mallia, Pace, Falzon and Vella. Curiously, other common local names such as Abela, Cini, Apap, Mamo, Mercieca, Sultana, Tanti and Thuema do not appear at all in either list (19). These family names were probably imported later, during the period of the Knights.

Another observation of non-Semitic names at that time shows that they outnumber Semitic names. This does not necessarily mean that these men were of European stock. Notaries, civil and religious clerks, deeply rooted in continental culture, often Latinized or "Sicilianized" Semitic names as they saw fit, either phonetically or morphologically. This explains why Maltese family names (even those of Semitic origin) do not follow modern spelling rules. Family names such as Ebejer, Agius and Cassar were standardized at the expense of Għebejjer, Għaġuż, and Kassar, even though the latter forms seem to reflect the correct pronunciation (20).

It is clear that the late Middle Ages sought to move away from Arabic and Muslim names. Some names, such as Harabi, Razul, Xara, Hakem, Maxta, and Buras had almost completely disappeared by the time the Knights took possession of the Maltese islands. Others survived in disguised forms. For example, family names such as Caruana (< Karwan), Farrugia (< Farrug), and Saliba (< Salib) take the final -a to conform to Romance morphological patterns. It has been suggested that Mamo could be a contracted (and distorted) form of the first name Mohammad, while Pullicino could be an approximate translation of Chetcuti, meaning "chicken"; likewise Magro and Pace could be the Italian translation of Deyf (but mistakenly) and Salem (21).

The small medieval Jewish community of Malta was expelled from the islands in 1492, but a minority of Jews managed to avoid conversion to Catholicism and integrated into the population. It should be noted that while the Jews of Malta, like those of Sicily, naturally practiced Judaism, they spoke Arabic fluently. Thus, the names of this community surely left, albeit marginally, a certain impact on local onomastics. Some local Semitic names may originate from Jewish sources.

After being expelled from Rhodes in 1522 by the Ottoman Turks, the Knights Hospitaller moved to Malta and settled in Birgu in 1530. A good number of Rhodians, some counting 5-600, followed them to the island, where they stayed and married (22). This could explain the existence of old Greek names in Malta such as Piscopo, Anastasi, Callus, and perhaps the considerable number of Grech, which means "Greeks." Many of these Rhodians did not have family names as such. Most of them adopted epithets that eventually evolved into full-fledged family names of the type: Cipriott(o), Zante, Del Rodo, Calamatta, Sciotto, De Candia, Santorino. Non-Hellenic toponymics include Perdicomati, Paleologo, Fardella, Roncali. Other Greeks bore the Italian name of their Venetian, Genoese or Amalfitan ancestors (De Bono, Speranza, Maldonatao, Grandanig(o)), while some family names were of Albanian origin (also present among the Italian and southern Sicilian diaspora); these include Depiro (< D'Epiro), Crispo, Caliva. Virtually all of these names belonged to the Three Cities and to a lesser extent to La Valette, in 1687 (23). Although Maltese of Greek origin may have come directly from their country of origin, it should be kept in mind that the Hellenes had long been in Sicily and southern Italy, especially in Magna Graecia, where there were many immigrants who settled in Malta. For example, when Valette was built, the Knights encouraged the massive arrival of workers from Sicily and Calabria to help with the construction work (24).

Another important element is that Muslim slaves lived on the islands at the end of the Middle Ages and during the period of the Magistracy. Conversion and mixed marriages were frequent, especially under the rule of the Order when Malta was one of the largest slave "reservoirs" of the Christian Mediterranean. Joseph Cassar Pullicino recounts how at that time 60 to 70 slaves of the Order could be baptized per year, and there is also much documentary evidence of slaves working for Maltese families converting to the Christian religion. The converts, representing a wide range of ethnic origins (from Djerba, Turkish, Albanian, Slavic, Arab, Persian, Berber, Black African) took the family names of their masters, or of their godfathers in baptism, and are undoubtedly the origin of racial "regressions" sometimes encountered in the population and in endogamous villages (25).

However, the prolonged stay of the Knights of St John (1530-1798) resulted, in a stronger way, in an influx of Neo-Latin and continental names. The Order employed many foreigners in all its activities; many craftsmen, skilled workers, military personnel, professional sailors, as well as legal, financial, administrative, clerical, and medical staff settled in Malta and then married the inhabitants. This "foreign" influx can be proven by the following two examples. Between 1587 and 1635, 859 marriages were registered in Cospicua. Of these, 301 (35%) were contracted with foreigners coming mainly from France, Italy, Sicily, Spain, Candia, and Flanders. In the years 1627-1650, out of a total of 1,131 marriages registered at the parish of Porto Salvo, La Valette, 365 (32%) were contracted with foreigners, most of whom appear to have been sailors, merchants and small traders (26).

Examination of the names of La Valette and especially of the Three Cities clearly shows that their first bearers were, like other seafaring peoples, individuals connected to maritime trade and originating from the main ports of the Mediterranean with which Malta had commercial relations between the 16th and 19th centuries, namely Syracuse, Catania, Messina, Naples, Livorno, Trieste, Genoa, Marseille, Barcelona. Often foreign mercenaries serving in the Order's army chose to settle and marry on the islands. Relations between Cotonera's inhabitants and foreign residents were always close and the consequences were not merely linguistic (27).

These foreigners were not just sailors and merchants who came to sell their goods and left. Many sought their wives among Maltese girls. There are many attested cases of foreign parents whose children were born in Malta. But there were also young Sicilians, Neapolitans, Venetians, French, Dutch, or Greeks. During the period of the Magistracy, prostitution and illegitimacy were a problem in the Three Cities and after the construction of La Valette, it was common for a womanizing knight to seek adventures in the poorer towns around the Grand Harbour. Cases are frequent of Knights of the Order having children in Senglea and Vittoriosa, a practice that worried the local clergy, as the godchildren in question were illegitimately members of the Order. Such a state of affairs could not fail to alter the ethnic and psychological composition of the townspeople.

Many recent additions from Sicily and Italy, mainly in the capital, date from the period of the Italian Risorgimento (1830-1870) and from 1903 to 1906 during the construction of breakwaters in the Grand Harbour by Italian and Spanish workers, some of whom married local women and settled in the town of Albert, on the border of Marsa and Paola (28).

Until the early 20th century, social relations between the British and the Maltese were minimal, but the two great wars brought the two peoples closer together, and led to many mixed marriages.

This explains the proliferation of English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish first names; today the Kitchers, the Rutters, the Howards, and the Becks have clearly encroached on local anthroponymy.

According to the 2005 census, the ten most frequent family names in Malta originating from the British Isles are Jones, Mackay/Mckay, Smith, Martin, Turner, Brown, James, Roberts, Taylor, and Bray (29).

In addition, there are family names of other origins, mainly German (e.g., Schranz, Brockdorff, Conrad, Schmidt, Wirth, Wismayer), Indian (e.g., Mohnani, Balani, Tarachand, Kiomall, Bharwani), Slavic (e.g., Antoncich, Bogdanovich, Elich, Domancich, Nikolic), Chinese (e.g., Li, Wang, Zhang), Jewish (e.g., Cohen, Ohayon, Tayar), and recent Muslim additions from Turkey and North Africa (e.g., Abbas, Khan, Kasap, Tahir, Alakkad, Ahmad, Aslan, Mohamed).

A mix of Bulgarian and Black African names have recently arrived on the island thanks to the recruitment by local clubs of foreign footballers, some of whom settled and married local girls. The local surname pool is destined to increase due to the eventual naturalization of several irregular immigrants who arrive on our shores, fleeing poverty or political hardship in their countries of origin.

Text published with the kind permission of Mario CASSAR

1. Introduction
2. Some random thoughts
3. Organization of Maltese family names
4. Hull's theory on the Girgenti colony
5. First censuses and classification of names
6. The 2005 census and the most common Maltese names
7. The pantheon of Maltese family names
8. Frequency by location
9. An overview of Gozo
10. The parallel 'Australian' sample
11. Cognates and doublets
12. Multiple names
13. Disappeared names