Question Regarding Italian vs American Given Names

[TriciaFierro]

My great grandfather was born Pompilio Domenico. Traveled to US three times as Pompilio before staying in the US from 1909 until his death in 1960. From 1909 until 1960 he was known as Domenic. He had 9 children with the first three being born in Italy. His three children born in Italy were born as Maria, Nicola and Felice according to their Italian birth records and the ship manifest from when they came to US. On Pompilio/Domenico's naturalization papers they were written as Mary, Nicholas and Felix. In their American lives they were known until their deaths as Mary, Nicholas and Philip. his other 6 children are on his Naturalization papers as Concetta, Antonia, Josephine, Pompilio and Arturo. In their American lives they were known as Jennie, Annie, Josephine, Paul and Arturo. Most of the names I can see where the Italian name became the new American name...even Felice to Felix to Philip, however, Concetta to Jennie confounds me as does Pompilio to Paul. Has anyone ever known of Pompilio to be translated to Paul in America? Paul was my grandfather so it is of special interest to me to know how he might have gone from Pompilio to Paul.
Also, his naturalization papers are correct as far as definitely being his due to the address which he lived in America the rest of his life and the ship he came over on, etc. So I know this is the correct family just curious about how the given names might have gotten changed here from there time of birth.
Look forward to your input. Thank you!

[johnnyonthespot]

You have got to be careful here; this is a case where an original Italian birth record would come in handy or, at the least, it would pay to have someone broadly familiar with these records look over your work.

Pompilio is in fact an Italian surname; there are 322 listings in the current Italian telephone directory: http://www.paginebianche.it/execute.cgi ... &om=0&l=en

As a given name, Pompilio does not exist in any listing I have ever seen. The nearest examples are Pompeo and Pomponio.

Domenico is very rarely seen as a surname but is an extremely common given name which is usually Americanized simply as Domenic or sometimes as Nick/Nicholas.

[TriciaFierro]

Sorry for the confusion but Domenico was his middle name not his surname. His first name was Pompilio though and that was on his birth record: Pompilio Domenico Fierro. Here is a copy of his birth record:

http://img864.imageshack.us/img864/7449 ... erroby.jpg

[JohnArmellino]

As a given name, Pompilio does not exist in any listing I have ever seen. The nearest examples are Pompeo and Pomponio.

I've seen Pompilio as a given name on occasion. I have ten entries in my database with that given name. All are from the province of Campobasso (the comuni of Campobasso, Ferrazzano, Pietracatella, Oratino, and Fossalto).

[TriciaFierro]

John,
My Pompilio was from Montecalvo Irpino, Avellino, Campania. And actually it was suanj on here that helped me tremendously in finding his ship manifests last year because I couldn't find one under Domenico Fierro. She found 3 under Pompilio and they were all him 1903, 1906 and 1909. I didn't find his birth record until after she helped me find the manifests. This forum is amazing!!!

[JohnArmellino]

Montecalvo Irpino is about 30 miles from the towns I mentioned. And yes, this is a great forum!

[Bette]

I can see in some of these cases you mentioned that the Italian name was not translated into the English name. Concetta would have been Constance, in English. Paul is Paolo in Italian. So, to conclude, I would have to say that these names might have been chosen at random, possibly by the teachers when, as children, they started school and not necessarily the actual translation of the name. You can find translations on the internet. Just search on Google.com - Italian names.