Is Charles a common Anglo name for Angelo?

[Robin B Mc]

One of my ancestors was born Angelo Scioli in Philly abt. 1881. Sometime in his adulthood he changed his name/starting going by Charles Scioli instead. I thought it was weird because while many Italians did Anglicize their names, they usually just went with an Anglo version of their Italian name - Giovanni to John or Giuseppe to Joseph. Angelo to Charles? The two have nothing to do with each other as far as I know so I assumed he just randomly picked an English name he liked because there's no real Anglo version of Angelo, at least no in normal usage.

But then I found another relative who was also born Angelo (Massaro) in 1914 in Italy and after immigrating he is found on records as Charles! So was this a common choice for Angelos wanting to Anglicize their names? Or do you think the second Angelo was just taking a page from the first Angelo's book? The second Angelo would have been the nephew of the first Angelo's wife. So am I just seeing a family tradition here or have other people come across any Angelos changing their names to Charles?

[jennabet]

In Italy today, the name Charles would be the English translation for the Italian name Carlo. For example, Italians refer to Charles, the Price of Wales, as Carlo.

[Robin B Mc]

Thanks Jenna, I do know about Charles/Carlo but there's no real English name for Angelo so I just wondered if, for some reason, it was common for Angelos to take the name Charles, even though the names have nothing to do with one another. I've seen it twice now in my own tree so I wondered if it was just my family or if others had seen it.

[113yearslater]

It could just have been a personal decision -- my great-grandfather's first name was Aniceto, and his coworkers called him Harry. He called himself Harry as well -- he hated his first name.

[Anizio]

There is no guarantee Italian names, when anglicized, became the English equivalent. Just like Chinese immigrants pick random names as their English names.

The English version of Angelo is Angel, it is not common but there are Latin American Americans who do take the english form in the US. But as ha been said, he could have totally picked a new name - what you need to know about Italians IN italy, especially in the old days, is they had nicknames that everyone knew them by. My greatgrandfather was named Simone, but he went by Paolo (in italy). Same with my dads cousin Flavio who went by Claudio. I know Angela's sometimes go by Angie. Once you go beyond the 1800s it also includes last names, ie. my ancestors with the Rocconi last name went by Pistagnocchi - so some documents would list them as Rocconi vulgo Pistagnocchi. In both cases this was done to differentiate between other people with the same first or last name. So when there's two Simone's in a group of friends, you give them nicknames, or two Rocconi families in an overlapping area you give them different vulgar names so you know they are not actually related.

ps. Aniceto is a great name - named after the old main god of the Marsicans in the pre-roman, early roman times.

[113yearslater]

Aniceto is a great name - named after the old main god of the Marsicans in the pre-roman, early roman times.

Agreed -- my g-gf was an awesome guy. Doesn't the name mean "invincible?"

My mom's told great stories about her grandparents. Apparently, my g-gm was a looker when she was younger, and Aniceto had competition for her. So the story goes, he solved the problem in the male way: he beat the other guy up.

[Anizio]

Aniceto is a great name - named after the old main god of the Marsicans in the pre-roman, early roman times.

Agreed -- my g-gf was an awesome guy. Doesn't the name mean "invincible?"

My mom's told great stories about her grandparents. Apparently, my g-gm was a looker when she was younger, and Aniceto had competition for her. So the story goes, he solved the problem in the male way: he beat the other guy up.

Ah yes thats right, I confused the name with another. It comes from Greek. One of my ancestors in Abruzzo was named Aniceto. I always liked the name.

[Nunzi]

Interesting question! My sister and I were wondering why our dad, christened Angelo in 1925, was always called Charlie. No family story but all his siblings had anglicized names. Curious