Show ContentsArno History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

Venice, one of the oldest and most beautiful regions of Italy, is the esteemed birthplace of numerous prominent families, and of a family that bears the surname Arno. Although people were originally known only by a single name, it became necessary for them to adopt a second name to identify themselves, as populations 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 10th and 11th centuries. Arno was a surname derived from an occupation. Occupational surnames, which are less common than other types of surnames in Italy, date back to the feudal era. The surname Arno is an occupational name for a the personal name Arnoaldi, which is itself derived from the Frankish name "Arnuwalda." The Frankish given name Arnuwald, which is composed of two elements, arnu, which means eagle, and walda, which means powerful, was given to a person who was as powerful as an eagle.

Early Origins of the Arno family

The surname Arno was first found in the cities of Venice and Vicenza where Arnaldo Arnaldi was the first person bearing this surname. Arnaldo from Arezzo, born in 1052, dedicated his life to the church. As a result of his loyalty, Enrico III granted him all imperial concessions to the church in Siena. This meant that Arnaldo could essentially treat the church as his second home.

Early History of the Arno family

This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Arno research. Another 64 words (5 lines of text) covering the years 1358, 1364, 1465, 1532, 1613, 1640, 1721, 1724 and 1750 are included under the topic Early Arno History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Arno Spelling Variations

There are many variations of most of those Italian names that originated in the medieval era. Some of these come from regional differences, like the tradition of ending northern names in "o" and southern names in "i". Others come from inaccuracies in the recording process, which were extremely common in the eras before dictionaries standardized spelling. Some of the spelling variations of Arno are Arnaldi, Arnaldo, Arnao, Arnaud, Arnaudi, Arnaudo, Arno, Arnold, Arnoldi and many more.

Early Notables of the Arno family

Prominent among members of the family was

  • Alberto Arnoldi (or di Arnoldo) (fl 1364) an Italian sculptor and architect from Florence, know for his colossal sculpture of the Madonna and Child with two angels for the Loggia del Bigallo in Floren...
  • Bartholomaeus Arnoldi, OSA (1465-1532), an Augustinian friar and doctor of divinity who taught Martin Luther but later turned against him into his earliest and one of his personally closest opponents

Arno Ranking

In the United States, the name Arno is the 15,935th most popular surname with an estimated 2,487 people with that name. 1


United States Arno migration to the United States +

An inquiry into the early roots of North American families reveals a number of immigrants bearing the name Arno or a variant listed above:

Arno Settlers in United States in the 19th Century
  • Lewis Arno, who arrived in New Orleans, La in 1813 2

Contemporary Notables of the name Arno (post 1700) +

  • Peter Arno (1904-1968), born Curtis Arnoux Peters, Jr., American cartoonist who contributed cartoons and 99 covers to The New Yorker from 1925 to 1968
  • David Arno, American Republican politician, Alternate Delegate to Republican National Convention from Texas, 1988 3
  • Siegfried "Sig" Arno (1895-1975), German-Jewish film actor, best known for his roles in Pardon My Sarong, and The Mummy's Hand
  • John Arno Halbert MBE (b. 1937), former Australian rules footballer
  • Arno Joseph Mayer (1926-2023), American historian who specialized in modern Europe, diplomatic history, and the Holocaust, Dayton-Stockton Professor of History, Emeritus, at Princeton University
  • Arno Klaassen (b. 1979), Dutch bobsledder at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin
  • Arno Motulsky (1923-2018), German-born, American professor of medical genetics and genome sciences at the University of Washington
  • Arno Rink (1940-2017), German painter
  • Arno Herzig (b. 1937), German historian from Wambierzyce, Silesia
  • Arno Ros (b. 1942), German philosopher, Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg

HMS Royal Oak
  • Roland Arno (1923-1939), born in Sunderland, Co. Durham, England, Irish Boy 1st Class with the Royal Navy aboard the HMS Royal Oak (1939) when she was torpedoed by U-47 and sunk; he died in the sinking 4


  1. "What are the 5,000 Most Common Last Names in the U.S.?". NameCensus.com, https://namecensus.com/last-names/
  2. Filby, P. William, Meyer, Mary K., Passenger and immigration lists index : a guide to published arrival records of about 500,000 passengers who came to the United States and Canada in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. 1982-1985 Cumulated Supplements in Four Volumes Detroit, Mich. : Gale Research Co., 1985, Print (ISBN 0-8103-1795-8)
  3. The Political Graveyard: Alphabetical Name Index. (Retrieved 2016, January 7) . Retrieved from http://politicalgraveyard.com/alpha/index.html
  4. Ships hit by U-boats crew list HMS Royal Oak (08) - (Retrieved 2018 February, 9th) - retrieved from https://uboat.net/allies/merchants/crews/ship68.html


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