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It doesn't have to be "pre-Latin". Rome as a large city was multi-ethnic - Roman families could be Etruscan, Sabine, Oscan, Western-Greek etc. as well as Latin.modern Italian dialects reflect many of these pre-imperial languages to this day (although most are endangered). Latium, was a very small area of ancient Italy. It does make it difficult to reliably decipher family names, as most are poorly recorded, and Etruscan still defies a full interpretation.

This message was edited 9/24/2021, 10:23 AM