The name Antonio, one of the most widespread in Italy, has generated a great variety of surnames over time. These forms arose by the patronymic route, with regional suffixes, phonetic modifications, prefixes or combinations with other names. To facilitate their analysis, we organize the surnames into different groups according to their morphological structure or their dialect evolution.

Forms with N (aphaeresis)

In this group we find the most transformed forms of the name Antonio. Through a process of aphaeresis, the first part of the name is lost, giving rise to forms such as Nino, Nini, Ninno.

• Nino, Nini, Ninno, Ninni: forms diffused in southern Italy.
• Ninu, Ninuzzu, Ninareddru: Sicilian variants with the diminutive suffixes -uzzu, -eddu.
• Ninetta: feminine form with an affectionate value.

These forms reflect a strong dialect tendency, especially in southern Italy, where Antonio is transformed into variants such as Ninu, Ntoniu or Totò, often unrecognizable if their origin is not known.

Formations in -uccio and -uzzo

Within this same process, some surnames were formed from the aphetic hypocoristic Nùccio and from its southern variant Nuzzo. These forms derive from affectionate altered forms in -uccio and -uzzo, very characteristic of central-southern Italian. These suffixes are not applied only to Antonio, but to various personal names ending in -no, -ne, -ni. Among the most common are: Antonuccio, Benuccio, Mannuccio, Marianuccio, Rinuccio and Stefanuccio.

In these cases, the surname is formed from the reduction of the original name and the addition of an affectionate suffix, giving rise to forms such as Nuccio or Nuzzo, very widespread in southern Italy, which could have derived from any of the names mentioned above. In western Sicily, where the surname Nuccio is especially frequent, its origin is further linked with the place name Nùccio (province of Trapani), which indicates a possible double route of formation: patronymic and toponymic. At this point, the original name almost disappears, but it lives on in the surname, hidden in brief forms transmitted from generation to generation.

If we look at the whole, the pattern is clear:

• Ni- / Nin- → direct reduction of Antonio
• Nu- / Nuc- / Nuz- → passing through Antonuccio (and other personal names) with southern affectionate suffixes
• Extreme N- (Not, Nus, etc.) → heavily reduced forms of the north-east, where the original name was progressively shortened until only its final part was preserved, through dialect phonetic processes (such as Antonio → Toni → Ton → Not/Nut), becoming difficult to recognize without linguistic analysis

In addition, there are other Italian surnames beginning with T that also derive from the name Antonio, especially in areas of the north-east, which we analyse in a specific note owing to their particularities.