Pizzolo

The Italian name Pizzolo is classified as being of habitation origin. Habitation names are those family names which are derived from either the location of the place of residence of the initial bearer or from the name of the town or village from whence he hailed. According to the author Gerhard Rohifs, this name is a variant form of the Calabrian and Sicilian name Pizzulo and Lu Pizzu, which in turn is derived from the place name Pizzo, a small town located in Calanzaro, Italy. Thus the original bearer of this name was known by members of his community as “the one from Pizzo”. Alternatively, this name is of the nickname origin. Family names which find their origin in a nickname usually refer to a particular facet of the character of physical appearance of the person to whom, the nickname was initially applied. In this case, the name is derived from the Italian word “pizzo” meaning “pointed beard, goatee”, and the diminutive suffix “olo”. Thus the original bearer of this name was known by members of his community as having a small goatee or pointed beard. Variants of the surname Pizzolo include Pizzo, Pizzolla, Pizzulo, Pizzuto.

One of the earliest references to this name or to a variant is a record of the marriage of Giorgio Pizzolo and Rosa Tuscello, which was celebrated in Novara, Messina, Italy, around 1666. Their son, Pietro Pizzolo, was the first recorded there, circa 1698. However, research is of course on going and this nane may have been documented even earlier than the dates indicated above. The Pizzuto family is listed among noble families from Sicily. Notable bearers of the surname Pizzolo included the seventeenth-century artist and painter, Davide Pizzolo and the eighteenth-century Italian composer, Giuseppe Pizzolo.