A study of the general scope and geographical distribution of religious place names
5. Toponymy deriving from saints’ names is usually a quite clear discipline, although it is not always easy to find its reasons for identifying the particular
saint, among various homonyms, from whom a place name derives.
An additional complicating factor is that there are place names which have been affected by the various dialects spoken in Italy, particularly frequent in the microtoponymy, which are less subject to interventions aimed at making them conform to the vernacular tradition of the Italian language. Among the Italian town names which still preserve a vernacular form there are toponyms such as Santu Lussurgiu (Sardinia) which corresponds to Santo Lussorio, patron of the town; Christian Martyr murdered probably in Fordongianus (Sardinia) at the beginning of the 4th century; his celebration falls on 21st August (DTI).20 Some other forms have been quite altered by folk tradition and thus it is now very difficult to identify the corresponding saint.
The toponym San Fratello (Sicily) results from the name Filadelfo, one of three brothers (the others being Alfio and Cirillo), Christian martyrs, through a popu-lar transition is evidently influenced by the expression ‘three brothers’ (DTI).21 Sant’Oreste (Lazio)22 is a toponym resulting from San Edisto, a name which, in the Middle Ages, was pronounced Eristo or Aristo. The form Sant’Oreste resulted from this element, even though this has not been an obstacle to the patron saint’s celebration that still occurs nowadays on 12th October, the day of Sant’Edisto (see ROHLFS 1972: 77 and DTI).
The place name Santo Stino di Livenza (Veneto) results from Santo Stefano, patron of the town, through the diminutive form Stefanino.23 The case of San Remo (Liguria) is well known, given the popularity of the city. The toponym results from San Romolo, locally pronounced San Römu, and from this pro-nounciation results the official name which then represents an adaptation of the vernacular one; and ecclesia Sancti Romulii and its corresponding castrum
20 The name of this saint, even though slightly altered, can be found in San Rossore, in the area of Pisa and in this city there is also a church of San Lussorio (ROHLFS 1972: 88).
21 In the territory of San Fratello there is an Arabic–Norman sanctuary of the Three Holy Brothers; however, the patron of the town is San Benedetto il Moro (Benedetto Manassari) who was born in San Fratello in 1524 and died in Palermo in 1589.
22 Locally pronounced Santrèsto (DETI).
23 The reduction to Stino (in dialect Stin) is interpreted as a phonetic result of Stevanìn >
Steanìn > Steenìn (DTI).
were mentioned in 962 as the direct property of the church of Genova.24 San Lùcido (Calabria) results from the vernacular alteration of San Niceto, pro-nounced Nìceto, as confirmed by a document of the 14th century in which it is underlined that the place was named San Niceto even though sometimes it was called San Lucido as well.25
San Fili (Calabria) is the vernacular form from Sanctus Felix, through the nominative.26 A toponym San Fele, with the same saint’s origins, can be found in Basilicata.27
The place name San Didero (Piemonte) results from San Desiderio and the ecclesia Sancti Desiderii has been documented since 1065.28 In Venice’s urban toponymy San Marcuòla, from Hermagoras, that is Ermacora or Ermagora (who was the first bishop of Aquileia in the 2nd century) takes its name from the church sacred to the saints Ermacora and Fortunato, while Sant’Aponàl, in Venice too, reflects Apollinare. San Gillio (Piemonte) is the Italianization of Gilles, a French form derived from the Latin Aegidius; the parish church, in fact, is dedicated to Sant’Egidio. Sant’Arpino (Campania) seems to come from Sant’Elpidio, who is the patron saint of the town, transformed by the vernacular pronounciation.
Some patrociny settlement names result from the mingling of two saints, like for instance San Trovaso (Veneto), which can be found in Venice’s urban toponymy too, and which derives from the fusion of the names Protaso and Gervasio, while San Cosimano (in Lazio), San Cosimano, San Cusumano (in Sicily) result from the fusion of Cosma and Damiano.
Various patrociny settlement names are characterized by diminutive suffixes, generally expressing love, veneration or gratitude to the saint. This kind of structure is reflected in toponyms such as San Giuseppuzzo (Sicily), San Giovanniello (Campania), San Donatino (Tuscany) (ROHLFS 1972: 84). In some cases it is a misinterpretation of final vowel and an interference between
24 The cult of this saint is linked to the hermitage on the mountains where Romolo, bishop of Genova in the 4th century would have retired, and to his grave (DTI).
25 San Niceto is reflected in other toponyms in Calabria, such as Santu Nicitu, a hamlet of Motta San Giovanni (DTI).
26 According to ROHLFS, through the French Saint-Félix (1972: 89). The town’s patron is San Francesco di Paola, while an image of San Felice can be found above an altar in the parish church. According to folk tradition, the name San Fili would derive from a bandit called Santo and his Fili ‘sons’ (DTI).
27 It was already documented in 1150–1168 as Sanctum Felem (DTI).
28 The worship of San Desiderio is widely present in Northern-West Italy as demonstrated by various toponyms such as Pré-Saint-Didier, literally ‘the meadow of San Desiderio’ in Val D’Aosta (DTI). ROHLFS (1972: 77) derives from San Desiderio also San Disdagio (Tuscany) and San Didasio (Lombardia).
santo and santa; for example, Santo Saba has become Santa Saba (Sicily) and from Santo Foca resulted Santa Foca (Friuli–Venezia Giulia).
The current Santomenna (Campania), which resulted from San Menna, whose celebration falls on 11th November, has been named so since 1881; previously, it used to be named Santamenna, with santa instead of santo due to the influence of the final -a.29 As is evident from the example of Santamenna, in some toponyms there has been a fusion between the title and the name of the saint: Sanniccandro di Bari and Sannicandro Garganico (both in Puglia)30 evidently derive from San Nicandro; Sannicola (Puglia) corresponds to San Nicola; Sannazzaro de’ Burgondi (Lombardia) from San Nazzaro, patron of the town;31 Sammichele di Bari (Puglia) from San Michele.32
In some cases, names written as one word, and phonetic alterations, now make the identification of the saint’s name difficult. The name Santeramo in Colle33 results from Sant’Erasmo (from Antiochia) patron saint of the town;
in this case, not only is the spelling altered but there is also evidence of a retraction of the accent resulting at a phonetic level in sn > mm > (m).
The toponym Sandrigo (Veneto) is interpreted as the vernacular result of Sant’Ulderico.34 Valsanzibio (Veneto) corresponds to Valle San Zibio, that is San Eusebio and in fact in the town there is a chapel sacred to the saint (see OLIVIERI 1961). The toponym Santhià (Piemonte) results from Sant’Agata, already documented in 999 as Sancta Agatha, through a phase *Santhiate then apocopated according to the local phonetics of Piemonte’s dialect; it is interesting to note the permanence of -h- in the written form, which can be explained as an attempt at scholarly reconstruction.35
29 A similar transition from masculine to feminine can be found in Sicily as well: Santa Menna, name of an hamlet (CARACAUSI 1993).
30 Sannicandro di Bari used to be San Nicandro until 1862 (DTI).
31 San Nazzaro until 1863; the new name represents an allusion to an ancient settlement of the Burgundi (DTI).
32 It was called San Michele until 1863 but in folk tradition is usually called u Cuasalë ‘the farmhouse’, its inhabitants are both called sammichelini and casalini (DETI). It is a town founded in 1615 by the signior Michele Vaaz, to whom is due the choice of San Michele as patron saint. Originally, the town was populated by a Serbo-Croatian colony.
33 Santeramo until 1863, the town developed around the monastery of S. Erasmus, already documented in the 12th century (DTI).
34 San Dorligo della Valle (Friuli–Venezia Giulia) corresponds to Sant’Ulderico too, patron of the town, which was named Dolina until 1923, a name of Slovenian origin from dolina
‘valley’; it has been preserved in the local tradition and it has been translated by the expression della Valle (DTI).
35 The place took the name Sancta Agatha when the empress Teodolinda, a convert to Christianity, had a church erected there (DTI). The cult of Sant’Agata, martyr of the faith in
It is very difficult to identify Sant’Anatolia, the saint patroness of the town, in the toponym Esanatoglia (Marche), which has been known as Sant’Anatolia or Santanatoglia until 1862. The new toponym is not the result of a vernacular misinterpretation but a new creation decided by the town council of the time.
In fact, to avoid homophony with Santanatoglia di Narco (Umbria), a toponym Esa, which was supposed to be the ancient name of the town, has been added to (Sant’)Anatoglia (DTI).
Sanzeno (Trentino) does not result from the name of the saint San Zeno (or Zenone) but, in a misinterpreted form, from Sisinio, martyred at the end of the 4th century; in fact, in 1329 the place is mentioned as Sancti Sisinii.
In some other toponyms it is not possible to reconstruct the saint’s name as they have lost their appellative san- as in the case of Orzivecchi (Lombardia) which derives from San Giorgio, to whom a chapel was dedicated, already documented in 1184: [capella] Sancti Georgii.36
Origins from a saint’s name are not clear in toponyms of Calabria such as Jacurso and Joppolo, the ancient hágios of the saints Akursios and Euplos (latinised in Opulus), being almost lost (ROHLFS 1972: 79, DTI). It is interest-ing to note also the story of the town name Gerace (Calabria) which, durinterest-ing the Byzantine domination, was named Hagia Kyriaké (ecclesia sanctae Cyriacae) then becoming Hiérax (genitive Hiérakos) in the 12th century. This is a case of etymological reinterpretation, due to a link with the Greek word hiérax ’sparrow-hawk’ which then prevailed over the religious tradition.37 6. In the various bilingual and multilingual areas of Italy there are patrociny settlement names which can present a double tradition: the local and the Italian one, or a single name as the result of ancient forms.
As it has already been put forward as evidence, in Greek-speaking areas of Italy the word hágios ‘saint’ is still present, currently pronounced as ajo and as in those areas. For instance, in the Salento region there are place names such as As Antoni, near Bova (Calabria) Ajom Betro, that is ‘Saint Peter’. The city of Galatina is called, in the local Greek dialect As Petru (from the patron
Catania, has spread all over Italy since the 6th century and her name is reflected in various toponyms all over the Italian peninsula. She is the patron saint of Catania where she has often been invoked during the eruptions of the volcano Etna (IMBRIGHI 1957: 57).
36 In this patrociny settlement name the element Saint got lost and the initial consonant in Georgius has fallen away, from this Orzi and not Iorzi, because the I is perceived as an article, as confirmed by the local dialectal pronounciation of the toponym, which is I Urs.
The addition of -vecchi is due to the foundation, in 1193, of a town nearby named Orzinuovi, for the Bresciani to confront the Cremonesi (DTI).
37 The form Gerace, locally Ieraci, depends on the diminutive hierákion ‘little sparrow-hawk’
(ROHLFS 1972: 79).
saint) which corresponds to San Pietro (in the dialect of Salento Sampiètru), San Donato is called Adunnao, San Cesario is Accisari (ROHLFS 1972: 76).38 In the Slovenian-speaking areas of Northern-East Italy there are places such as San Leonardo, in Slovenian Svet Lénart, while San Pietro al Natisone is Speter Slovenov (see DETI).39
In Albanian-speaking territories there is the town of Santa Sofia dell’Epiro, in Albanian Shën Sofi.40
In the Greek cultural setting the word kyrios was used with the meaning of
‘saint’, analogous to the Latin domnus. Traces of this habit are still present nowadays in Southern Italy. They are mostly crystallised forms, whose origins from a saint’s name are not clear, which do not have a double tradition (Italian and Greek). The toponym Cersosimo (Basilicata) belongs to this group, which derives from Kyrios Zósimos ‘San Zosimo’ to whom a monastery was dedi-cated, first belonging to the Basilian order, then to the Benedictines (DTI and ROHLFS 1972: 76).41
In the Alto Adige (Südtirol), bilingual area (German and Italian) which was added to Italy after World War I, the Italian toponym (prepared by Ettore Tolomei) was juxtaposed with a pre-existing German one.42
Among the remaining patrociny settlement names adapted by Italian there is Jenesien, translated as San Genesio, to whom a church is sacred, a place already documented in the Latin form in 1186: in monte sancti Genesii;43 Sankt Pankraz, from the name of the patron, became San Pancrazi44 whilst Sankt Lorenzen corresponds to San Lorenzo di Sebato.45
38 Since 1863 they have been called respectively San Donato di Lecce and San Cesario di Lecce.
39 San Pietro al Natisone was named, in the Italian tradition, San Pietro degli Schiavi until 1869.
40 In an articulated form Shën Sofija; dell’Epiro was added to the Italian form in 1863 (DETI).
41 ROHLFS quotes the names of towns in Calabria Cernostasi, Cerantoni, Ceramarta resulting from the saints Anastasius, Antonius and Martha.
42 Ettore Tolomei (1865–1952), scholar and irredentist, appointed senator of the Kingdom of Italy in 1923, has been the main promoter of the rivendication of Alto-Adige for Italy. He is the author of the Italianization of the toponymy of Alto Adige (Südtirol) in “Prontuario dei nomi locali dell’Alto-Adige” (1935). In the process of Italianization, Tolomei followed some criteria as: 1. adaptation of the German forms into Italian; 2. translation from German into Italian; 3.
creation of local names (neo-creation); 4. resumption or restoration of various local names of (neo)Latin origin present in the documents (see PELLEGRINI 1990: 413–414).
43 In the Italian version it was called San Genesio until 1929, when it took the determination of Atesino (DTI).
44 San Pancrazio is at the origin of various toponyms in Italy (IMBRIGHI 1957).
45 At first it was named San Lorenzo in Pusteria; the current name dates back to 1939; Sebato alludes to an ancient Roman settlement civitas Sebatum, of which archaeological testimonies remain; a toponym of pre-Roman origin, extinct and recently resumed (DTI).
The toponym Innichen of German tradition (and of probable pre-Latin origin) is rendered by the hagionym San Candido, which refers to the collegiate’s patron saint (DTI); this is a neo-toponym deriving from the name of a saint.
However, for Sankt Ulrich in Gröden of German tradition (Sankt Ulrich derives from the patron saint), for Italian toponymy Ortisei was the name chosen.
This name was present in that area and belongs to the Ladin tradition of the Val Gardena (in German Gröden) and in nearby territories.46
The process of Italianization of hagiotoponyms from other languages has taken place in Val D’Aosta, a Franco-Provençal dialect area (French and Italian bilingualism). This process was the result of the linguistic policy and the xenophobic ideology of Fascism. When the dictatorship ended the original names were once again used (it is the only form in the official toponymy as well with Saint ‘saint’ of French tradition). For instance, it is interesting to consider the toponyms which were Italianized in 1939 and then returned to their original form in 1946: Pré-Saint-Didier became San Desiderio Terme;
Saint-Rhemy is San Remigio; Saint-Vincent is San Vincenzo della Fonte;47 Challant-Saint-Anselme is Villa Sant’Anselmo; Rhemes-Saint-Georges is Val di Rema.
References
Biblioteca Sanctorum. Istituto Giovanni XXIII della Pontificia Università Lateranense, Roma, 1961–1969.
CARACAUSI, G. (1993) Dizionario onomastico della Sicilia. Centro di Studi filologici e linguistici siciliani, Palermo.
DESINAN, C. C. (1993) San Michele Arcangelo nella toponomastica friulana.
Problemi e ipotesi. Società Filologica Friulana, Udine.
DETI = CAPPELLO,T.–TAGLIAVINI,C. Dizionario degli etnici e dei toponimi italiani. Patron, Bologna, 1991.
DORIA,G. (1979) Le strade di Napoli. Ricciardi, Milano–Napoli, 1979.
DTI = Dizionario di toponomastica italiana. Utet Libreria, Torino, 2006.
46 Both the place names have a documented tradition that dates back to the Middle Ages, in 1336 there is the attestation S. Ulrichs mulgrei, in 1288 Ortiseit, the latter being a name which derives from urtica ‘nettles’ through urticetum (DTI). As for the Ladin tradition, it is the so called Ladino Dolomitico also known as Ladino centrale, which belongs to the neo-Latin varieties of Italy and which, according to the 1999 law (n. 482, December 15), belongs to the group of the “historical linguistic minorities” of Italy.
47 The name Fonte is due to the presence of homonyms in Italy and derives from the fact that the town is a hydromineral station of the low Valle d’Aosta.
G. GRASSO (1900) Metodo e Misura nelle ricerche di toponomastica. Società Geografica Italiana, Roma.
IMBRIGHI, G. (1953) Il toponimo San Pietro nella regione italiana. Note sulla diffusione e distribuzione. Istituto di Geografia della Facoltà di Magistero dell’Università degli Studi di Roma, Città del Vaticano.
IMBRIGHI, G. (1954) Maria di Nazareth nella toponomastica italiana. Tecnica Grafica, Roma.
IMBRIGHI,G. (1957) I santi nella toponomastica italiana. Istituto di Scienze geografiche e cartografiche della Facoltà di Magistero dell’Università degli Studi di Roma, Roma.
Martirologio. New edition. Tipografia e Libreria Salesiana, Torino–Roma, 1886.
OLIVIERI, D. (1961) Toponomastica veneta. Istituto per la collaborazione culturale, Venezia–Roma.
PELLEGRINI, G. B. (1990) Toponomastica italiana. Hoepli, Milano.
Prontuario dei nomi locali dell’Alto-Adige. Reale Società Geografica Italiana, Roma, 1935.
ROHLFS, G. (1972) Studi e ricerche su lingua e dialetti d’Italia. Sansoni, Fi-renze.
ROHLFS, G. (1974) Dizionario onomastico e toponomastico della Calabria.
Longo, Ravenna.
1. Introduction
First of all I want to welcome the aim of developing a systematic review of hagiotoponymy in Germany, i.e. of settlement names with reference to saints of the Christian church. Neither such a fundamental manual like ADOLF
BACH’S “Deutsche Namenkunde” (Heidelberg3,1978) nor the “International Handbook of Onomastics” (HSK 11, Berlin–New York, 1995–1996) could realise this intention, because already for one European state it needs the co-operation of a team to work on this theme.
Settlement names with the element Sankt in their official forms are relatively rare in Eastern Germany. While in Southern, Western, and North-Western Germany we can find a lot of them, their occurrence or representation is very limited in the regions of Saxony, Sachsen-Anhalt, Thuringia, Brandenburg, and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. On the one hand German Sankt is a sure sign for such a patrociny settlement name, on the other hand it is very difficult to find out whether a personal name like Peter in an official toponym represents the name of the saint, i.e. of the church in the settlement, or of the founder or owner of the village, etc.
On checking the lexicon “Müllers Großes Deutsches Ortsbuch 2005” we found this result: Names with Sankt + hagionym (the name of the saint) can be names of villages, of localities, i.e. parts of villages, of small places with only a few inhabitants, even of groups of single houses, and of ecclesiastical institutions. But here we will mainly refer on the names of settlements.