Family lore has always been that grandfather dropped the O and that’s how we became the “Roman” family. Not sure that Roman is less Italian than Romano, but solved vowel problem.
That was not untypical back then. But Roman can also represent Spanish and several other nationalities as well. Romano? Lol, strictly Italiano
As long as you're discussing Italian immigrant name changes, I was told that G in Italian didn't convert to English.
Thus the first letter of our Surname was changed to J. Anything factual about this or just another old wive's tale?
G is usually pronounced like a J in Italian. Especially when it's the first letter in a name. Hence, a surname like Guiliano would be like a Juliano.
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To provide you two more perfect examples of other such letters of the alphabet with the same problem is U, and sometimes the letter I. Thats why Francesco Uale, became Frankie Yale. And why Joseph Iacovelli, became Joseph Yacovelli.
The "americani" couldn't pronounce or even understand the spelling of such names.
