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Italian Names I Really Thought I Saw When Scanning 200-Year-Old Handwritten Vital Records

A list of 36 words by chained_bear.

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  • reesetee Well put. I think my nom de plume from now on shall be Ravioli Barcaloungia. May 21, 2009

  • bilby The line between illusion and reality on Wordie is about half tinned-artichoke, half abominable showman. Amen! May 21, 2009

  • chained_bear Bleary-eyed misreadings, rolig. Scrolling through about a century of handwritten records in, I think, four or five different towns. This was far too early for the big "waves" of Italian immigration to the U.S.

    So imagine me spending twelve-hour days whipping through endless reels of microfilm, focusing on each index page, squinting and running my finger down the names, mentally reciting the ones I wanted to find, and stopping dead at something that looked *exactly* like "Ravioli Barcaloungia," or "Cinnamon di Tommaso." Then giggling uncontrollably till my eyes watered (which under the circumstances took about 2 seconds), whereupon someone would glance at me from a neighboring machine, and I'd dry my eyes and move on to the next Salmonella di Catafalqua.

    Ah, the days of youth. Feelio still makes me giggle.

    It actually didn't happen *that* often--a few times a day at most. I could read most of the names pretty easily, but boy, if you let your mind wander for about five seconds, Cavanaugh definitely yanks you back. (Too late, it occurred to me I should've kept track of what these misread names really were, for more Hilario. And I also didn't keep track of some of the REAL names I thought were rather freaky.) May 21, 2009

  • reesetee Hilario! Favorited. :-D

    Having had a similar experience, I'm guessing that these come from bleary-eyed misreadings of old handwriting. May 21, 2009

  • bilby Joy! May 21, 2009

  • rolig Can you tell us something more, C_B, about these curious records? Are these the (perhaps altered) names of immigrants to the US? Or do you mean that your eyes deceived you? (19th-century handwriting can be very hard to decipher.) May 21, 2009

  • Prolagus I'm truly impressed. May 21, 2009