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Re: Scimeca
in reply to a message by Marc
As a Sicilian surname (from the province of Palermo), Scimeca might also have an old Arbëreshë or Slavic origin, just as a lot of other last names from Palermo area do (you can check the history of the Arbëreshë immigration to Italy at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arb%C3%ABresh%C3%AB_people).
In this case it might come from the Slavic surname Šimek (pronunciation: Shimek), which is just a pet form of the personal name Šimon (English: Simon) through his short form Šime + the diminutive suffix -ek (http://www.ancestry.com/facts/Simek-name-meaning.ashx).
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The Wikipedia link clearly indicates that Arbëreshë is Albanian which is only distantly related to Slavic as you can see at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-european. If Scimeca is indeed from Albanian, which is certainly possible, then the origin can't posibly be from Czech or Croatian Šimek.
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I know but I meant "either Arbëreshë or Slavic", not only Arbëreshë. In Sicily, just as in many other parts of Italy, there are a lot of surnames of Slavic origin too (from North to South of Italy), plus also a lot of Albanian surnames often have an old Slavic origin: there's actually a number of such surnames in Southern Italy, I mean Arbëreshë surnames deriving from a Slavic root.
That's why I took either an Arbëreshë or a Slavic origin into account, even though in this particular case - Scimeca - I guess it is more likely Slavic.
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