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Re: origin of the surname "Buccambuso"
I'd found that the root Bucca or bucco or buco means a hole in Italian ...maybe a pit ... the ending, I'm sure ...M. Sagani can help with ...My guess is someone from who lived near a pit or a hole ...
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I was thinking that bucca might be a dialect form of bocca, "mouth". Then getting carried away by this theory I wonder, could ambuso be a dialect form of abuso, "abuse"? I'm thinking of an intrusive M that occurs before a B in some southern dialect words like Ottumbre for Ottobre, or umbriago for ubriaco. Then we might have a name meaning "mouth-abuse", an epithet for someone whose speech is not very kindly.
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Funny thing - I looked for information on this name on a website dealing with Sicilian names, frequency and distribution. According to that source the name does not exist in Sicily.
I then looked at a site covering the whole of Italy and the name was "non trovato" (not found). I did try other possible versions such as Boccambuso, Buccambusa, but no joy.
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