Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.italiano
Titolo: ciccone means ?

My passion is the etymology of surnames and names of places. I have come
across recently the name Ciccone and have had no luck in finding its
original meaning or where the word came from. Does anybody have any
idea? Thanks in advance for those who reply.
    Sabina
                La mia passione e il etymologia  dei cognomi e dei nomi
dei posti. Sono venuto recentemente attraverso il nome "Ciccone" e non
ho avuto fortuna nell' individuazione del relativo significato originale
o da dove la parola e venuto.
                Qualcuno ha una idea? grazie in anticipo per  il persone
che risponde. Sabina

 risponderą. Sabina
Non ho riscontri, ma penso provenga da "Cicco" (diminutivo di Francesco),
con il suffisso accrescitivo -one, quindi, Ciccone = grosso Francesco.
--
Er Roscio.
(P.S. Scusa se ho corretto il tuo italiano, ma questo č pur un NG
di lingua italiana e penso di aver fatto una buona cosa cercando
di aggiustare la traduzione)

 idea? Thanks in advance for those who reply.
It has no transparent meaning to me, but I am from northern Italy, and
this sounds like a southern surname.  If it has some meaning in some
southern dialects, perhaps participants from southern Italy will help
you.
The "-one" suffix means "big" when applied to a noun (but there also
are many nouns in which "-one" is part of the root).  "Cicca" means
"chewing gum" (it comes from Mayan "c^ikla", which is also the origin
of English "chicles"). In slang, "cicca" also means "cigarette" or
"cigarette end".  But I strongly doubt that "Ciccone" may mean
something like "big chewing gum" or "big cigarette (end)"... :-)
Ciao.
Marco

 "cigarette end".
I have never associated "cicca" as chewing gum to "chicle" (although I'd
knew the word "chicleros"). Anyhow this is a quite recent meaning of
"cicca". The other one ("cigarette end", "butt") is older. In milanese
there is also the verb "cicca'" which to me is associated to both
meanings : it means "to spit" and/or "to chew", like in old times did
people who chewed tobacco and than spat the remainder. So my inclination
would be to associate "Ciccone" with the behaviour of somebody who
spits.
But I'm probably wrong since the word "cicca" is used in the north,
while that surname sounds southern to me (and also to
http://gens.labo.net/it/cognomi/genera.html
).
The explanation as "big Francis" from Cicco <- Francesco sounds
plausible (I've actually never heard the nickname Cicco, except in one
very ancient case, there was a Cicco Simonetta who was Secretary of the
Duke of Milano in 1500  ... never known he was Francesco, but he was
born in Calabria).
-- 
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From "Dictionary of Italian Surnames" by Emidio de Felice:
CICCO. variants Cicci; De Cicco. altered Cicchello, Cicchelli, [...]
*Ciccone*, Cicconi, [...] (long list)
It's frequent in peninsular southern Italy (but Cicco is also frequent in
Veneto, NE of Italy) and it comes from "Cicco", which is a diminutive for
"Francesco" (English: Francis), popular in the South.
Bye,
Paolo