Persichini
This form is an altered form of the surname Persico.
Origin and meaning
E. De Felice and V. Blunda agree that the surname derives from the term persico, an old or regional form for designating the peach tree.
E. De Felice adds the dialectal variants pérsegu in Ligurian, pèrsegh in Lombard, pèrsego in Venetan, and pèrsico or pèrsicu in the south. He also notes that it may derive from Persico-type place names, frequent in several Italian regions.
V. Blunda, for the Sicilian variant, derives it from the word pérsicu ("peach tree"), which preserves the Latin root persica ("Persian fruit"), for the eastern provenance of the tree. As a surname it could have originated in a microtoponym applied to one who cultivated peach trees or lived beside a fruit plantation.
Variants
Altered forms and derivatives
Geographic distribution: Italy (sporadic); greater frequency in Liguria and Naples (altered forms specific to the Neapolitan area)
📍 You can view how this surname is distributed in Italy: View distribution in Italy (Cognomix)
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.
- Blunda, V. (2018). Supposte origini dei cognomi in Sicilia [Digital edition]. Retrieved from https://www.trapaninostra.it