Annotations on family names of Italian origin in the Banja Luka region

Abstract

This paper gives an overview of family names of Italian origin in the Banja Luka region. Namely, with the arrival of Italians in this area, the fate of family names in the new, linguistically different surroundings variegated. Family names were often replaced by a local surname or underwent different linguistic transformations and adaptations under the influence of the Serbian language, but quite often they also remained unchanged. Our aim was to determine which of these directions of development was dominant in the case of Italian family names in the Banja Luka region. The original Italian family names were adapted to the Serbian orthographic system. Lately, there is a tendency to return to the original spelling of family names inspired by the national awakening of the Italian minority in the local area; for example, the noted family name Bellina originated from Belina. The morphological changes pertain mostly to the suffi xation of -ić, as was the case with Serbian family names. Thus, the following surnames were noted: Alvir and Alvirević, Đerman and Đermanović (derived from the German form). Prosodic changes are evident in the system of accentuation: Villa>Vila, Agostini>Agostini, Giarmati>Đarmati.