Azzopardi

Azzopardi is an Italian surname of Langobard origin, now naturalized in Italy, Malta and France in the form Azzopardi (written in various documents as Azupardu, Azuparda (in the 1419 militia list), Aczupard, Zupard (1480 militia list), Azzupard, Azzoppardo, Azzopardo, Azzopardi, Azzoppardi, Zoppardo, Zopardo, in the Status Animarum or church census of 1687). It still occurs in Northern Italy in the form Azzopardo (mainly in Julian Venetia), and in Sicily in the forms Zuppardo, Zuppardi. It derives from a combination of the Langobardic Italian names Azzo meaning 'noble' and Pardo, originally the name of a Germanic tribe (the Bardi); see E. De Felice, Dizionario dei cognomi italiani, Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1978, p. 64. A Genoese notary of the 13th century bore the name Ogerius Açopardus. Claims of Spanish, Greek or Jewish origins by amateur genealogists are all spurious, this being one of the oldest Italian surnames, introduced by one or more Christian settlers from Sicily some time between the thirteenth and the fifteenth century. It has been falsely claimed that this name is the same as Safaradi, the name of a family of Maltese Jews, despite the facts that the surname Azupardu was already well established in the local Catholic community, and that the Safaradi family was expelled from Malta along with the rest of the Jewish community in January 1493.