Record Atlas
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Giovanni

Giovanni. Attested in United States of America, France, Denmark, Italy, Russia, borne by about 1,273 people in the registers this map holds.

The same name, spelt two ways

One systematic substitution — s for z, w for v, ch for h — where BOTH spellings are independently attested surnames. Kosina and Kozina are one man in two clerks' handwriting. Stronger than sounding alike, weaker than somebody having checked.

Giovani

Only sounds alike

An algorithm's guess. Useful for casting a net, and not evidence.

GivanniIovanniGiovannaGiovannaiGiovaneGioviniIovanna

It is also the name of a place

This is as close to an origin as this map will go. A surname that is also a place name often came from it — and often did not: plenty are occupations or patronymics that happen to collide with a place, and plenty of places are named after a family rather than the other way round. It is a fact with a source, which is more than an etymology page offers.

  • Giovanna Italy pop. 22 only a phonetic neighbour, not a spelling

Where it is borne, and where a record names it

Attested in 5 countries: United States of America, France, Denmark, Italy, RussiaDenmark — attested, not countedItaly — attested, not countedRussia — attested, not countedFrance — 442 peopleUnited States of America — 831 people
A dot is a country, not a place. It sits at the country's centre because a national register counts a country; nothing here says where in it these people are. A hollow ring is attested but not counted — Denmark publishes which surnames exist and not how many carry each, and a family archive finds a name without counting heads. Sizing those by a number nobody published would invent it. Blank is not absence. This draws the 5 countries where the eleven registers and eight archives behind this atlas attest the name. Most of the world has no surname register this project can read, and the ones that do and will not are listed with the reason.

Country by country

Each country below can carry up to three different kinds of evidence, and none of them is the same claim. A register is a head-count — a state counted these people. A record is one document naming the surname on that ground, narrower evidence and often much older. And a volume overlapping these dates is a document from the right place and years — never a document known to name this surname. None of the three ever means the name exists in that country and nowhere else, or that it exists nowhere but here.

United States of America

831 Borne — a state counted them — Frequently Occurring Surnames from the 2010 Census; Frequently Occurring Surnames from the 2000 Census.

Whose archive to write to

54,717 of 528,875 volumes held for United States of America overlap the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1970s and 1980s — the decades Giovanni is attested here. Too many to list, and this atlas does not know whether any one of them names Giovanni. The commonest kinds: Probate, land and notarial, Civil registration and vital records, Immigration and emigration, Church and parish registers. See everything this atlas holds for United States of America →

France

442 Borne — a state counted them — Fichier des noms de famille 1891–2000 (INSEE, fichier national).

Whose archive to write to

4 of 1,513 volumes held for France overlap the 1920s — the decades Giovanni is attested here. None is known to name Giovanni: a volume overlapping these years is a document from the right place and time, not a confirmed match. Worth an afternoon.

Denmark

Borne — a state counted them — Navne registreret i Danmark, January 2020 (Danmarks Statistik, republished by Digitaliseringsstyrelsen).

Whose archive to write to

This atlas has no birth-year evidence for Giovanni in Denmark, so it cannot narrow Denmark's 4,099 volumes by date — see Denmark's own page for all of it.

Italy

Found in a record — Defranceschi.

Whose archive to write to

50,567 of 1,288,913 volumes held for Italy overlap the 1420s, 1430s, 1920s and 1970s — the decades Giovanni is attested here. Too many to list, and this atlas does not know whether any one of them names Giovanni. The commonest kinds: Civil registration and vital records, Church and parish registers. See everything this atlas holds for Italy →

Russia

Found in a record — Defranceschi.

Whose archive to write to

This atlas has no birth-year evidence for Giovanni in Russia, so it cannot narrow Russia's 25,047 volumes by date — see Russia's own page for all of it.

When it was being born, in France

INSEE counts births by surname and decade from the état civil, 1891 to 2000 — the only dated evidence in this dataset. A name that starts at zero and climbs arrived; a name that falls to nothing left, died out, or emigrated, and the decade it stops is the decade to stop searching. It counts births registered in France, so a family that emigrated in 1900 simply stops appearing, which is information rather than a defect.

  • 1891–1900 29
  • 1901–1910 34
  • 1911–1920 51
  • 1921–1930 57
  • 1931–1940 33
  • 1941–1950 26
  • 1951–1960 56
  • 1961–1970 47
  • 1971–1980 34
  • 1981–1990 36
  • 1991–2000 39

Whose archive held that ground, and when

Every surname site can tell you a name is common somewhere. This one also knows which filing system held that ground in which years — and those are the two halves of one question: my people were called this, they were there, so who has the paper, and for which century. A name in Croatia before 1881 may sit in a military series and not a county one; a name in the Netherlands before 1811 has no civil record at all, only a baptism.

This is about the ground, not about your family. A register counting a name in a country says nothing about which village. And these are the pieces of a country this atlas has drawn, which in a large one may be a corner of it — Acadia reaches into Maine and is not a statement about the United States, and Bohemia's ground crosses into Poland. Each region's own page says which ground it covers. Where a country is missing below, nothing covers it yet.

United States of America
France
Denmark
  • Denmark 4 eras Denmark–Norway → Denmark, after the loss of Norway → Prussia, then the German Empire → Denmark
Italy
  • Carnia, Friuli 6 eras Patriarchate of Aquileia → Republic of Venice → Austria → Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy → …
  • Campania — Caserta and Naples 5 eras Kingdom of Naples → Napoleonic Kingdom of Naples → Kingdom of the Two Sicilies → Kingdom of Italy → …
  • Eastern Sicily — Catania 4 eras Kingdom of Sicily → Kingdom of the Two Sicilies → Kingdom of Italy → Italy
  • Calabria 4 eras Kingdom of Naples → Napoleonic Kingdom of Naples → Kingdom of the Two Sicilies → Italy
  • Carniola and the Slovene lands 8 eras Inner Austria → Austria → The Illyrian Provinces → Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, then Yugoslavia → …
Russia
  • East Prussia 4 eras State of the Teutonic Order → Duchy, then Kingdom, of Prussia → German Empire → Russia in the north; Poland in the south; Lithuania at Memel
  • Livonia, Estonia and Courland 5 eras Sweden in the north, the Duchy of Courland in the south → Russian Empire → Estonia and Latvia, independent → Soviet Union → …
  • Finland 4 eras Sweden → Grand Duchy of Finland, under the Russian crown → Finland

Find Giovanni on the map →

The surname dataset · CC0, and downloadable