What is "azzopardi"

n. (surname Maltese dot=) derived from ''A Safardi'', which means "a Jew coming from Spain".

Azzopardi is an Italian surname of Lombard origin, now naturalized in Italy, Malta and France in the form Azzopardi (written in various documents as Azupardu, Azuparda (in the 1419 militia list), Aczupard, Zupard (1480 militia list), Azzupard, Azzoppardo, Azzopardo, Azzopardi, Azzoppardi, Zoppardo, Zopardo, in the Status Animarum or church census of 1687). It still occurs in Northern Italy in the form Azzopardo (mainly in Julian Venetia), and in Sicily in the forms Zuppardo, Zuppardi. It derives from a combination of the Langobardic Italian names Azzo meaning 'noble' and Pardo, originally the name of a Germanic tribe (the Bardi); see E. De Felice, Dizionario dei cognomi italiani, Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1978, p. 64. A Genoese notary of the 13th century bore the name Ogerius Açopardus. Claims of Spanish, Greek or Jewish origins by amateur genealogists are all spurious, this being one of the oldest Italian surnames, introduced by one or more Christian settlers from Sicily some time between the thirteenth and the fifteenth century. It has been falsely claimed that this name is the same as Safaradi, the name of a family of Maltese Jews, despite the facts that the surname Azupardu was already well established in the local Catholic community, and that the Safaradi family was expelled from Malta along with the rest of the Jewish community in January 1493.

The reference from the publication is repeated verbatim here in case of loss of the original document, Godfrey Wettinger, "The Origin of 'Maltese' Surnames", Melita Historica, xii, 4 (1999), 333-344: Ref. [27] For Accio see: Codice diplomatico della Repubblica di Genova, “Fonti per la Storia d’Italia”, Roma 1942, III, doc. 44, p. 120: Azo Rovedus, Azo Borel, giugno 1197; and Azo de Pangiano, Azo, Salvaticus, Azo Rovedus, and Azo de Avolasca in ibid., doc. 50, pp.131-132, 27 Agosto 1198. Ogerius Açopardus figures among witnesses to a notarial deed in Genoa on 4 August 1201: Giovanni de Guiberto (1200–1211), a cura di M.W. Hall-Cole et al., “Notai liguri del secolo XII, vol. V,” Genoa, 1940, doc. 350 in vol. I, 173.