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Question:Is Petrelli (like Peter Petrelli) actually a real last name? I know it's: Italian, it comes from the Latin word "Petra", Petra means "rock". Ok, so what else?


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Is Petrelli (like Peter Petrelli) actually a real last name? I know it's: Italian, it comes from the Latin word "Petra", Petra means "rock". Ok, so what else?

Yes it is a last name,
Petrelli
patronymic from a pet form of the personal name P(i)etro, an Italian equivalent of Peter. This is also common as a surname in the Greek islands of the Aegean.
from a pluralized form of a habitational name from Petre.
hope this helps.

The Italian census isn't on-line. There were this many Petrellis in the USA in these years:

404 - 1930 United States Federal Census
205 - 1920 United States Federal Census
145 - 1910 United States Federal Census
30 - 1900 United States Federal Census

Rootsweb(free site) has 112 entries in family trees for Petrelli. Just pull the site up and put Petrelli in the World Connect block.
Once you pull up the trees if you see something that interest you, probe on a name and it will give you the name and email address of the submitter.

Now, don't take as absolute fact everything you see in family trees on any website, free or paid. They are user submitteed and most are not documented. Even when you see the same information repeatedly from many different submitters that does not mean it is correct. A lot of people copy without verifyiing. There are errors in family trees on websites.

Basicly, yes, it's derived from the Italian name Pietro, and it's a common last name in Italy.
Here's a translation from an Italian source:

"Petrelli is widespreaded in the central belt [of Italy] that include Marche, Umbria, Lazio, Neapolitan area, Apulia (especially Bari, Taranto and Salento area) and in Cosenza.

Petrello, rare, is from Friuli (especially Udine and Trivignano Udinese) and Pavia.

Petrilli is typically from Lazio, L'Aquila, Naples, Foggia and Reggio Calabria.

Petrillo is more Neapolitan, with secondary stock
in Lazio and in Foggia.

All these last names derives from hypocoristics (also from dialect) of the name Pietro;
evidence of these lastnaming can be found since 1500: in the register of students of University of Perugia a certain Andreas Petrillus is named in 1572, native of the province of Rome; during second half of 1600, Gregorius Petrellus di Sancto Gimnesio is lieutenant Governor of Narni (Terni)"

Yes, I had a mean Theatre Arts teacher with that last name.

-Laila