indicate the level to which a name has been verified.
Meaning & History
Variant form of Brancazio. There are a few sources that claim that the surname is derived from a place name (which would make it a locational surname), but that claim is incorrect, as all Italian geographical places carrying the name Brancaccio were either established long after the Middle Ages (by which time virtually all Italians already had a hereditary surname) or were named after a person who had Brancaccio for a surname. For example, the Brancaccio neighbourhood in the Sicilian city of Palermo was named after the 18th-century Napolitan nobleman Don Antonio Brancaccio. The Palace Brancaccio (Palazzo Brancaccio) in Rome was built between 1886 and 1912, while the Chapel Brancaccio (Cappella Brancaccio) in Naples was built between 1385 and 1709 and named after cardinal Rinaldo Brancaccio (born before 1384 and died in 1427).A known bearer of this surname is the American radio and television journalist David Brancaccio (b. 1960).