SURNAMES IN ITALY

Surname Guerrini

Origin and meaning

The authors agree that this surname derives from the medieval name of Germanic origin Guerrino, established in the popular imagination thanks to Andrea da Barberino's romance Guerrin Meschino. Its etymon is complex: it may belong to the same Germanic root and tradition as Guarino, but it may also be related to —or, more frequently, crossed with— the term guerra ("war").

E. De Felice notes that the surname is distributed across northern and central Italy, reaching as far as the Naples area, and that the forms ending in -ìn are characteristic of Veneto.

💡 The surname Guerrini also appears as variant of the surname Guarino in other studies consulted in this project.

Variants

Geographic distribution: The North, the Centre; as far as Naples; the -ìn forms in Veneto

📍 You can view how this surname is distributed in Italy: View distribution in Italy (Cognomix)

Drawing on 2 authors, this entry presents the different hypotheses about the origin of the surname, avoiding a single oversimplified explanation.

Sources

This entry of the Italian Surname Meanings dictionary is based on the following specialized onomastic sources:

  • De Felice, E. (1978). Dizionario dei cognomi italiani. Milano: Mondadori.
  • De Laurentiis, F. (2003). Cognomi occhiobellesi. Storia, curiosità, significati e classifiche. Occhiobello: Teatro Polivalente di Occhiobello (T.P.O.). Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20030516113456/http://www.comune.occhiobello.ro.it/cognomi/