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Children of unknown parents or those born out of wedlock
were given stigmatic surnames like
Proietto (castoff), Milingiana (eggplant) and so
on, and sometimes place names of faraway places, in effect,
saying that the child was 'not from here'.
A foundling would be
named by the civil official who registered the birth.
He might give the
child a saint's name or another made-up name as a 'first' or
given name, and also a fabricated surname.
In this case he imposed the first
name Felice ('happy') and Cordova, a place name, as
the surname.
Foundlings had no parents to name them, and early conventions
for naming them simply "Joseph Foundling" could make
identification difficult. So the law required that
they be given distinct surnames. Even when these
names were not blatantly stigmatic, an unusual name in a
small town would virtually assure that all would suspect the
child was born out of wedlock, and if that weren't enough,
the word esposto on the record sealed the deal.
In the case of Felice Cordova, both the record itself and
the index of births at the end of the year's records listed
the child as 'Esposto', and the name was indexed
alphabetically, not by the 'C' in Cordova, but under the 'E',
for Esposto.
For an explanation of the
name Giovanni Butera, see the Atto di Nascita that
follows the index below. |
