My family name is Latinized (standard italian) whereas most members of Italo-Jewish communities have retained their Jewish surnames or culture/practices/beliefs. My family traces to the same village in Italy for some 800 years at the least on the paternal side, and the record only runs out because of distance from present times. Thus I suspect them having been there for over 1000+ years, effectively ruling out medieval Jews or Judeo-Sicilian theories. I have tested for Jewish ancestry and have something like 1% of it, which I personally won't take as being a significant sign of Jewish ancestry. Due to these factors, notably a very long presence of my ancestors on the italian peninsula, I will shoot for either a Phoenician origin or simply a product of Neolithic migrations towards southern italy. With a fully italian name that sounds quasi French (most italian names do) and no recent history of Jewish relation, I feel my ancestors were present on the italian peninsula long enough to have been heavily assimilated and latinized, probably arriving some 3,000-5,000 years ago to southern italy.
