fact that merits discussion in the following chapter. In the later period, more sites attracted multiple patrons or visitors.70 A record of multiple individuals at a single site in the ninth to eleventh centuries gives way in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries to fewer individuals, or just one, attested by name in a given monument or site. Even if the specific numbers should prove to be skewed, it seems fair to say that in all periods the percentage of inscriptions that contain a personal name is very high. In at least three cases out of four in my data set, including a name or names was a motive—perhaps the most important one—for composing an inscription or graffito.
The most popular given names for men in the twelfth- to fourteenth-century inscriptions and graffiti are John (attested 18 times), Nicholas (14 or 15), George (7), Peter (5), Leo (4), and Pantaleon (3). John remains the most popular name, catching up in the visual sources to the “supremacy” he enjoyed earlier in all sources. Nicholas has also risen in the standings, as prefigured in the documentary sources, while Leo has declined, and Michael and Constantine have dropped out of onomastic competition. George has a sudden surge, as does Peter, and Stephen and Pantaleon to a lesser degree.71 Using a larger range of written sources for a smaller geographical area, Jacob found that John and Nicholas were the most popular names in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,72 followed by George, Leo, and Peter.73 He identified many more names in fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century sources; these continue to show a strong regional preference for John and Nicholas, followed now by Peter, Stephen, and George, with Leo far behind. Ecclesiastical tax records indicate that Nicholas was the name most commonly held by clerics in Apulia, Lucania (Basilicata), and Calabria in the early fourteenth century, followed by John and Peter,74 but the visual sources identify only one priest named Nicholas [108.A].
The later medieval period witnessed the introduction of many names not found in the earlier visual sources. Some of these are Germanic, Norman, or Breton names previously unknown in the region (Bailardus, Bosus, Formosus, Giraldus, Godfredus, Gosfridus, Guidonis, Hugh, Leonard, Magerius, Maraldus, Pellegrinus, Radelchis, Richard, Rinaldus, Roger, Sarulus, Ursus).75 Petrus (Peter) also arrives, probably with the Normans, but his popularity is attested more in written sources and hagiotoponyms than in dedications and epitaphs.76 In the fourteenth century, a new stock of personal names was introduced throughout Europe in conjunction with the spread of the mendicant orders. These new names permeate the written sources before they appear in the visual record; Francis, for example, is not found in public inscriptions in the Salento before 1432 [47.D].77 Antony is inscribed in a graffito at Taranto [143.E] and in the 1379/80 apse inscription at Vaste [157.A], but there is disagreement about whether the new popularity of this name is connected with Antony of Padua, canonized in 1232, or the much older Antony Abbot.78 In 1372/73 we find a bishop named Cyriakus [4], the Greek equivalent of Dominic, whose name began to penetrate the Salento along with its representatives in the Dominican order.79 The female equivalents of these new names, Kyriake and Domenica, are lacking in the local visual sources but well attested in textual documentation.
In the few female names known from the visual record, Maria was in use by the eleventh century, as it was in other Byzantine areas, although it would not become widespread in Europe until the thirteenth century.80 For the twelfth century, Jacob found that Maria was matched by Anna as a common female name, but Anna does not survive at all in our late evidentiary corpus. Diminutives are popular among the Greek names (Doulitzia, Kalia, Eulalia).81 As with male names, Latinate female names are introduced by the twelfth century (Rogaie) and begin to dominate in the fourteenth (Margaret, Isabella, Donna). In the family dedication at Vaste, the father, Antony, and one of the daughters, Ioanna (or Jeanne), have names that could not predate the fourteenth century [157.A]. At the beginning of the fifteenth century there is still a great variety of personal names in the Salento for both men and women; the different strata of names (Lombard, Greek, Latin) were not amalgamated into a smaller, more uniform stock as was the case elsewhere in Europe by the thirteenth century.82
Even families that were open to innovative personal names did not necessarily adopt a surname.83 Jacob found that approximately one-third of the twelfth- and early thirteenth-century names in his textual sources were supplemented by a last name, but the proportion is lower in the visual sources, under 25 percent for the whole period of the twelfth through fourteenth centuries. Three-quarters of these surnames are found in inscriptions or graffiti written in Latin; only a handful are in Greek. This significant disparity suggests that the authors of Greek public texts were less inclined to adopt last names even when their Latin-speaking neighbors did so and even though some upper-class Greek speakers had done so in preceding centuries.
There are four distinct types of surnames: anthroponymic, in which a first name is used as a last name; nicknames, often a given name in origin; geographical; and names related to professions or crafts. Of some 1,800 surnames culled from thirteenth- and fourteenth-century documentary sources, Jean-Marie Martin found that over 50 percent were anthroponymic, 30 percent were nicknames, 15 percent were geographical, and only a small percentage were related to profession.84 Of our nineteen male surnames, the geographical type is better represented than in Martin’s sample, with toponymic and anthroponymic surnames about equally present, but there are far fewer nicknames and professional attributes. Anthroponymic surnames include De Nestore [78.A], De Juliano [39], and probably Crispulus [76.A]. Local toponyms in our list include Leo of Nucilia (Nociglia) [66.F], Paul of Sogliano [30], and the archpriest of Latiano, George “de Horia,” presumably the nearby city of Oria [55]. More exotic in origin are Del Balzo (des Baux) [48], Moraville [82], De Marra [28.W],85 and Melitinos [1]. The toponym “de Morciano” accompanies a supplicant at Santa Maria di Cerrate [114.F], possibly from northern Italy rather than the southern Salento.86 Nicholas Palia identifies himself as coming from Giovinazzo, north of Bari [23.B], but his surname is unrelated to it. Longo seems to be the only local surname derived from a nickname [4], while Castaldo (from the Lombard gastaldus, representative of the king) [26.C] and Ferriaci (from the Latin for iron, a smith) [156.A] appear to be professional names. Markiantos [36] and Palia are both of unknown derivation.
In the most recent study of contemporary Italian surnames, roughly the same categories appear: augurial names culled from medieval personal names in Italian; names based on historical and literary tradition that became popular in the fifteenth century; nicknames ultimately derived from Latin personal names but used in medieval Italian (volgare) as ironic comments on an individual’s character or physiognomy; anthroponymic surnames culled from the Latin, German, Greek, and Hebrew substrata; and epithetic surnames, including patronymics or matronymics, ethnic and toponymic names, and professional names.87 In the medieval Terra d’Otranto the epithetic name was the most common; many of the names that we might consider anthroponyms are patronymic in origin, using a first name as a second name. In southern Italy in general, the epithetic surname is still the most common, especially the patronymic plural.88 For example, De Giorgi or Giorgio, D’Andria, and De Luca are among the top ten surnames in the modern provinces of Lecce and Taranto, and Iacobini is still attested in Lecce and Taranto.89 Among the twenty most common surnames in all of Italy, with particular frequency in the cities of Lecce, Brindisi, and Taranto, is the toponym “Greco,”90 reflecting the Byzantine demographics of a millennium ago. Longo, the surname of a fourteenth-century hospital builder in Andrano [4], is still popular in both Lecce and Brindisi,91 and even the decreasingly popular personal name Leo is still present as a common surname, especially in Taranto.92 Even today, in comparison with the rest of Italy the province of Apulia is characterized by exceptional diversity and local specificity in its surnames.93
We have already noted a few disparities in onomastic preference based on the types of sources consulted, so it is worth considering whether different
