The Sicilian Side
Searching for mom’s Sicilian side of the family isn’t as easy as pizza pie
Last year, my genetic test results through 23andMe and Ancestry led me to discover that I was adopted at birth. My personal search for identity within my new family tree begins this series of essays.
I’ve learned so much about ‘la mia famiglia’ and this is what I know so far: Sicilians practice an age-old system of naming a child after their maternal and paternal grandparents in a definite order.
In Sicily, a specific baby-naming order is used to preserve the family legacy.
It goes something like this: A man’s first son is named after his father, the paternal grandfather. If the baby is the first daughter, she’s named after his mother, the paternal grandmother. The second son is named after the man’s wife’s father, the boy’s maternal grandfather, and the second daughter is named after the wife’s mother, the girl’s maternal grandmother. The children born after these children, subsequently in the hierarchy of names, can be named after aunts and uncles, or a favorite saint.
And so on.
It was believed that each child named after their family member will continue on their beloved ancestor’s soul by name. Those grandchildren carry the names of their grandparents into future generations. It’s a beautiful concept that’s…
