The distinguished surname Alessi can be traced back to the ancient and beautiful region of Venice. The people here were known by only a single name until 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. Italian hereditary surnames were developed according to fairly general principles and they were characterized by a profusion of derivatives coined from given names. Alessi is a patronymic surname, a name derived from the father's given name. The surname Alessi came from the personal name "Alessio" which is derived from the Latin Alexius which means to defend or to protect.
The surname Alessi was first found in Rome (Italian: Roma), the capital of the Kingdom of Italy in the 15th century with the Alessio family, who moved to Sicily when they received a vast amount of land on the island from the king, Federico.
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Enormous variation in spelling and form characterizes those Italian names that originated in the medieval era. This is caused by two main factors: regional tradition, and inaccuracies in the recording process. Before the last few hundred years, scribes spelled names according to their sounds. Spelling variations were the unsurprising result. The variations of Alessi include Alecci, Ales, Alesci, Alescio, Alesi, Alesio, Alesseri, Alessi, Alessiani, Alessiati, Alessio, D'Alesio, D'Alessio and many more.
Prominent among members of the family was Antonio Alessio, a Baron in 1435 in Sicily; and Galeazzo Alessi (1512-1572), an Italian architect from Perugia who worked in Rome and...
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In the United States, the name Alessi is the 7,558th most popular surname with an estimated 2,487 people with that name. [1]
Immigrants bearing the name Alessi or a variant listed above include: