How did my dad get an italian last name?

My dad is from israel and so our my grandparents im from america born and raised but i was wondering how did my dad get an italian last name when hes from israel

How did my dad get an italian last name?
Israel has only existed since about 1949, following WW2. Historically speaking, that is just last week.


ANY name of someone in Israel, is going to have existed well before 1949. That's easy to figure. Surnames normally go back anywhere from 300-500 yrs, and they are not ALWAYS linked to just one country.


You didn't mention what the last name is, nor have you mentioned if your family is Jewish. I don't know of a reason why someone from Italy would not be Jewish, although it "usually" is Catholic. That's just a generalization.


The reliable way to find where your family/ ancestors are from, is to trace them with documents/ records.
Reply:If you were to check where your dad's father was born, or where his grandfather was born, I suspect that it wouldn't be Israel..





Somewhere on your father's father's side, there is an Italian.





Check the Italian surname's location in Italy on this link:


(Type your surname in the space "cognome".


http://gens.labo.net/it/cognomi/
Reply:Is it possible that when your family went over to US they decided that there would be less discrimination against someone of Italian descent than Israeli and so decided to change their name?
Reply:In recent history, there have been many Jewish people that have moved from all over Europe to Israel (including, I am sure, from Italy, as Italy has had a Jewish population dating back to "pre-Roman" times).





happy wife, it is highly unlikely that someone would have changed their last name to an Italian one because they thought that they would be less discriminated against by doing so. If they did, that would have been mighty foolish, especially if they had come over during the late part of the 1800s or early part of the 1900s. Just do a search with these terms on either Yahoo or Google: "Sicilians, Chief Hennesy, lynchings", "Italian-Americans internment World War II", "Sacco, Vanzetti", "Edith Labue", "Italian-American stereotypes, mafia". I rest my case.