When 8,000 families share the same surname, telling one another apart on paper can become a confusing, frustrating task. That’s why residents of Chioggia, Italy are rejoicing at a new decree from the interior of ministry that allows residents to use their nickname as a second, official surname, when filling out official paperwork.
The people of Chioggia have used nicknames to distinguish between distantly related families for the past 200 years, but now is the first time these nicknames, which are more than occasionally derogatory, have become official.
“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.
According to the Telegraph:
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”. Other, more bizarre nicknames include “Mad”, “Fat” and “Peasant”.
[Via: Telegraph]
