Origin of the Surname Brandi
Summary of My Research.
The distinguished surname Brandi is probably earlier than the Vth century and derives from the medieval name of Germanic origin Brando. It can be traced in the hinterland to the ancient and beautiful region of Venice.
Although people were originally known only by a single name, it became necessary for the people to adopt a second name to identify
themselves as population grew and travel became more frequent.
The process of adopting fixed hereditary surnames was not complete until the modern era, but the use of hereditary family names in Italy began in the Xth and XIth centuries.
Italian hereditary surnames were developed according fairly general principles and they were characterized by a profusion of derivatives coined from given names. The most common type of family name found in the region of Venice is the patronymic system of name-making because it perfectly complemented with the prevaling feodal system.
In Italy the popularity of patronymic type of surname is also due to the fact that during the christian era, people often named their children after Saints and biblical figures.
The surnames Brandi, Brando, Brandt etc... come from the word "brant" which means first poker then sword.
In the Brandi's coat of arms two elements, the laurel branchs and the crown, repeatead three times, furnished by a whole of the Gules shield. The symbols adopted into the armory are been used since the Antiquity, but heraldry itself began from the XIth century.
The first written mention of the surname Brandi is dated of 1081 and was rediscovered in the archives of the town of Bagnacavallo province of Ravenna:
"...Innovacio Angani et Brandi germanorum facta Scole piscatorum de omnibus in ribus suis que habetant in valibus Jusverti et Fenarie,
sub pensione omni anno sacharum triginta piscium..."
The name Bagnacavallo comes from a hypothetical source that who have cured the horse of the Roman Emperor Tiberius.
The Brandi then were divided into three main branches, one going to Florence, another to Rome and a third to Naples. Even today these three cities are the largest concentration of Brandi's surname in the world.
