/View.info/ For a long time I had the intention of compiling a list of the settlements in Italy that bear Bulgarian names – not only those where our ethnonym is obvious, such as the village of Bolgare in Lombardy, but also those whose names we can easily recognize the Bulgarian concept that gave birth to them. I emphasize that Italian etymologists are extremely difficult to interpret the meaning of the names that follow below and often offer naive or downright caricature explanations.
I constantly maintain that on the Apennine peninsula and its islands, it is more difficult to find a settlement that was not established by the Thracians and Bulgarians than the other way around. In this list, I will quote only the names of the settlements that I have personally visited and those that are most easily translated through the modern Bulgarian language. Some of them were created by branches of the Bulgarian ethnic group in the era of Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, and others – the vast majority – by the Thracians at the dawn of time. The very names of Italy, Sicily, the Aeolian Islands, Sardinia and Corsica bear the Thracian stamp. I will add that the lands of many of the villages and towns cited below also abound with names of localities and rivers with Bulgarian names. But it is difficult to look at every land under a magnifying glass.
The present list can and should be supplemented with other similar names from the conscientious Bulgarian researchers and travelers who visited Italy, which is genetically related to us.
BOLGARE ( BOLGARE ) – a village in the province of the city of Bergamo, Lombardy region. I visited him in 2016 and devoted a large study to him, published in almost all the central press, which can also be read on my blog – “Via Bolgera – The Bulgarian road. With the Bulgarians from the village of Bolgare in Lombardy.” There is also a YouTube video with an interview on this topic. The name of the village does not need any explanation, it is the only uncorrupted name of an Italian settlement bearing our complete ethnonym. Over the centuries, similar names have been slightly modified, and in recent decades, the Italian administration quite deliberately changed and blurred the names of such settlements and localities – for example, La Montagna di BulgAria became Monte BulghEria (with the Bulgarian name being changed and shortened only to one peak ) etc. As I write in the studio, the land of the village of Bolgare is a real treasure trove of Bulgarian toponyms – for example, the area “Godenishkoto” (Godenisco), Banyatitsa, etc.
PALOSCO ( PALOSCO ) – a village 5 km from Bolgare, province of Bergamo, Lombardy. In the cited article about Bolgare, in which I repeatedly mention Palosko, I derive his name from Pliska. Now, however, I would rather connect this name with “bal” – “white” – “BALOSKO”, which means “BALOVSKO” – “BYALOVSKO”. The springs and the inhabitants of Bolgare themselves point to the village of Palosko as part of the people who created Bolgare.
TELGATE ( TELGATE ) – a village in the province of Bergamo, Lombardy region. Telgate is surrounded by the villages of Bolgare, Palosco and Grumello del Monte. For the first time its name is mentioned in a document from 830, but according to historical sources, it originated in the Roman era as a station for changing horses on the central road Milan – Brescia. In the past, its name was spelled as TALEGATE, TALLEGATE, TALIGATE. There is no doubt that the original name of the village was TALIGITE – the plural form of the article has been preserved intact. The small village of TAGLIUNO, which today is part of the village of Castelli Calepio, bears almost the same name. About Telgate and Talyuno – see my article on blog.bg
GRUMELLO DEL MONTE (GRUMELLO DEL MONTE) – a village in the province of Bergamo, Lombardy region. The settlement is part of what I call the “undisputed Bulgarian area” around Bergamo. I derive its name from the name Krum or from “thunder”. In the past, before phylloxera, all its hilly land was covered with beautiful vineyards. There is also a village with the same name – Grumello – in the province of Cremona, Lombardy – GRUMELLO CREMONESE.
CELADINA – today a district of Bergamo, in the past a village in close proximity to the city. The meaning of the name is clear to every Bulgarian – Cheliadina, Cheliad (of course – Lombardy region).
GORLE ( GORLE ) – a village near Bergamo, Lombardy region. I think the name means “throat”.
LOVERE – a village on Lake Garda, in the province of Bergamo, Lombardy region. Its name means “hunters”, but the suffix is not “ec” (respectively “ci” in the plural), but the more ancient form ” ar, er”- “lover, lover” in singular – “lovere” is the plural noun.
CARAVAGGIO – a village in the province of Bergamo, Lombardy region, birthplace of the parents of the artist Michelangelo Merisi. The name of the village means “ship” – “cow carrier”. Everything about this name – in my article “Caravaggio – origin and meaning of the name”.
COCAGLO – a village in the province of Brescia, Lombardy region. Apparently the name derives from “bone” – such names are given to settlements that grow on former necropolises or battle sites where skeletons are dug up. The clear term “kokal” should not surprise us – Diodorus Siculus (Sicilian) in the “Historical Library” tells about king Kokal, for whom Daedalus built an impregnable palace – a fortress on the Camik rock, as well as other wonderful facilities. This “gl” in Cocaglio’s name is not pronounced “GL” – in the Italian language it softens the “l” sound and it is read as “l”.
POGLIANO ( POGLIANO ) – POGLIANO MILANESE – a village in the province of Milan, Lombardy region. The name of the settlement literally means “meadow”. There are other settlements in Italy with this name or with its variants. Here again we meet the letter combination “gl”, which softens “l” and turns the sounds “ia” into one sound “ya”, a written sign for which there is no letter in the Latin alphabet, but it exists in Italian phonetics and, accordingly, in toponymy.
BULGAROGRASSO ( BULGAROGRASSO ) – a village in the province of Como, Lombardy region. I visited it in 2017 – there is a video of my interview on the origin and history of Bulgarograsso on YouTube. I deduce his name from BULGARGRAD – BULGARGRADES. The Lombard historian Pavel Deacon and the Renaissance philosopher Benedetto Giovio clearly write about the indisputable Bulgarian origin of Bulgarograsso and the surrounding settlements, which today is denied by modern Italian or more precisely local historiography (with the exception of Mrs. Stefania Duvia). The local administration vehemently denies it, unlike the one in Bolgare. In fact, it was in this region – on Como – that the “state of Bulgaria” existed until the 11th century.
BULGORELLO ( BULGORELLO ) – a village near Bulgarograsso, which until recently was called BULGARELLO – province of Como, region of Lombardy. The name needs no comment, despite the complete denial of today’s Italian historians and linguists.
CIRIMIDO ( CIRIMIDO ) – a village in the province of Como, district of Lombardy. The name obviously originates from “tile”
COMO, RAVENNA, PADUA (COMO, RAVENNA, PADOVA) – the names of these cities are easily translatable through the Bulgarian language and its predecessor – Thracian.
The name of the city of Como has its exact parallel in the name of Mount Kom in Stara Planina – its meaning is “black” in the Aramaic language. Ravenna means “flat”, and Padua (Padova) will obviously mean “slope”, as well as the name of the river Po – Padanus. Names like Padova, Mantova, Genova even keep the Thracian and Bulgarian ending “-ovo,ova”
SCROVA – a village in the province of Padua, Veneto region (the name Veneto, Venice is also of Thracian origin). The name is almost identical to that of the village of Skravena in Botevgrad, and I think it comes from “blood”.
ROME – I include the capital of Italy in the list, just to remind you that the name of its founder – Romulus comes from the Bulgarian word “ROMOL” (for river) – see my blog.bg article “The Founder of Rome spoke Bulgarian”, which was published by all possible websites and newspapers in Bulgaria – and twice in Italy itself.
BARGALLI, DEVANYA, TRASO (BARGALLI, DEVAGNA, TRASO) – villages in the immediate vicinity of Genoa, Liguria region. Their names are incredibly interesting, and the fact that they are located next to each other strengthens my belief that they have Bulgarian and Thracian origins. Bargali probably means “Bulgarians” (“BALGARI”) with the typical for both Bulgarian and Italian languages, turning “l” into “r” and vice versa. This speech effect is known in linguistics. In DEVANYA, the Thracian component “deva” is clearly understood, and the whole name points us to our Devnya. As for TRAZO – I am convinced that the name originates from “Thracian”, “Thracian”. And there is nothing surprising in this – the villages are located in the heart of Liguria, and the Ligurians are part of the Thracian ethnic and linguistic block. Even in the Swiss canton of Ticino, in the valley of the river Maja, I found a whole rosary of toponyms that are clearly of Thracian origin – see my article “La valle magica. Nuove idee sull”origine e il significato della toponomastica Valmaggese”.
BOLGERI ( BOLGHERI.) – a world-famous resort town on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea in the province of Livorno, region of Tuscany. It is famous for its wine. Its name needs no explanation.
PERUGIA – the capital of Umbria. Her Etruscan name is Perusia, and it has its exact parallel in the name of the Bulgarian Peruštitsa.
SELANO ( SELLANO ) – a village in the province of Perugia, district of Umbria. The name means “village” and is identical to that of Selanovtsi, Oryakhovsko, Vrachan region.
ROCCAPORENA ( ROCCAPORENA ) – a village in the province of Perugia, region of Umbria. This village is the birthplace of one of the most revered and loved saints of Italy – Saint Rita, the saint of impossible cases – that is, she saves people who have fallen into fatal situations and heals the doomed afflicted with deadly diseases. They call it Santa Rita di Cacha (Cascia) – Cacha is the larger town in whose monastery the saint lived and died. In it today one can see her imperishable body in a crystal casket. Rocaporena is an extremely interesting name that has given me an insatiable desire to explore it. Not only out of research interest, but also with pilgrim humility before Santa Rita, I went to Roccaporena in 2017. And what I assumed as the meaning of the village’s name turned out to be true. ROCAPORENA means POROUS ( SPLIT ) ROCK. The village is entered through a narrow pass, surrounded by two high rocks, which remind the Vrattsata pass of Vratsa, but the road is even narrower, the rocks are even closer to each other – a real jagged rock. It was as if a sword had cut through a huge block of stone and opened a gap between its two halves. About Rocaporena and Kasha – see the video of my interview on YouTube called “Saint Rita of Cassia” – whoever uploaded it misspelled the name of the city Kasha – a name that literally means “house” – “kasha”.
lake TRASIMENO, TRASIMENO LAKE ( LAGO TRASIMENO ) – in the province of Perugia, Umbria. The lake is famous for the Romans’ battle with Hannibal’s Carthaginian forces in 217. Well, it’s not a settlement, but the name of the lake deserves a place on this list – and what else! In my opinion it means “Thracian property”, “Thracian possession” TRASI – MENO. Even if its name derives from the first name of a person, that person is invariably connected to the Thracian ethnic group.
CELLE DI BULGHERIA ( CELLE DI BULGHERIA ) – a village in the province of Salerno, Campania region. The name means “Bulgarian cells”. No comments are needed here, everything is clear, except that when I went there in 2005, I found out – earlier the settlement was logically called “CELLE DI BULGARIA” for centuries, and in the 20th century its name was changed to ” CELLE DI BULHERIA” – an “e” has replaced the “a”, but how much does that mean. Why it was done – guess for yourself. Either way, the change has not achieved the desired goal. The mountain, however, no longer bears its old name Montagna di Bulgaria, only its top remains to raise high the Bulgarian sign (albeit distorted) – Monte BulghEria. The river MINGARDO ( MINGARDO ), whose name I derive from MIN-GRAD, bubbles in the low.
BAGHERIA ( BAGHERIA ) – a city in the province of Palermo, Sicily. I think the name of the city means “BULGARIA”.
CERDA ( CERDA ) – a town in the province of Palermo, Sicily. Apparently, the name derives from “herd” – herd.
TROINA ( TROINA ) – a town in the province of Enna, Sicily. The name apparently means “three”, because there is also a river Troina, which divides into three arms and crosses all doubts about its name. In Sicily there is also a river GORNA LUNGA (GORNA LUNGA), in the name of which the ingredient “upper” is obvious, and the considered typical Italian adjective “lungo, lunga” – “long, long” also existed in our language and left a trace in an ironic noun – “lungur” – “long”.
I wrote a lot about the permanent “Bulgarian footprint” in Sicily in the book “Peak Bulgaria” (2016).
CORSICA ( CORSICA ) – in my opinion, the name of the island, Napoleon’s homeland, means “Sicani people”, “Sican people”.
#Settlements #Bulgarian #names #Italy
