Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973) fashion designer extraordinaire, born in Rome in 1890, arrived at her flamboyant peak in avant-garde Paris during the 1920s and 30s. Her exotic imagination did not jibe with the glum and austere aftermath of World War Two and the high fashion world soured on her designs. Through the 1940s she sold perfumes and finally closed her atelier in 1954. She introduced several iconic ideas of 20th century fashion. It was Schiaparelli who first put Marlene Dietrich in men’s suits, one of the most copied of her ideas. And she popularized the shocking pink colour. The actress Marisa Berenson, she of luminous fragility and skin of unkissed translucent pearl in Kubrick’s film “Barry Lyndon” (1975) is Schiaparelli’s granddaughter.

 

Die Ewige Marlene

The Eternal Marlene

 

Schiaparelli is one of the most mispronounced surnames in the history of clothing design. It’s ska-pa-relli. The initial consonant cluster Schia is a hard /c/ sound in Italian. Secondary stress on ska and full stress on -relli. She said her first name as ‘elza’, a modest zedding of the /s/ in Elsa.

Because of the influence of her style on American fashion, Schiaparelli made the cover of Time Magazine in 1934. Her nickname in Paris was Schiap, pronounced ‘skap.’ It fit her scrappiness and she picked it. Fashion history books and the internet abound in stories about her unusual materials, her quirky verve with accessories: for example, rabbit hoof buttons, butterfly zippers, fastenings shaped like fruits and vegetables. And her shoe hat! Zut! Alors! This column concentrates on possible sources of her wonderfully Italian surname.

 

 

What does the Surname Schiaparelli Mean?

SCABER Origin

Schiaparelli may have begun with the Latin adjective scaber ‘ rough’, which would go into Italian as, first, scapro, later schiapro or schiaparo (same pronunciation as scapro).

A surname that began as a nickname for a founding ancestor of the family, let’s say his village name was Luigi il Schiapro, Louis ‘the rough guy’, maybe nicknamed for his manner, his skin — whatever.

Eventually he received the affectionate diminutive ending –ello and was referred to as Schiaprello or Schiaparello ‘the rough but lovable guy.” Then the formal family name would evolve and he would be Luigi degli Schiaparelli ‘Louis of the Schiaparellis.’ Eventually the “degli” drops away to leave Luigi Schiaparelli.

Latin scaber had uglier meanings too and gave us English words like scabrous and scabies.

From the Italian Word Schiappa? 

A teeny-weeny Italian ancestor may have had a nickname that compared him to a slender sliver of wood, in Italian schiappa ‘splinter’ so that a schiaparello might be a REALLY tiny piece of wood. Linguistically this is not too plausible due to the infixation of the /ar/. ‘Little splinter’ in Italian would properly be schiappello. There is no need for the infixed /ar/. Indeed there is an Italian surname, Schiappelli.

Why Do So Many Italian Names End in /i/ ?

Quoted from the internet: “A large number of Italian surnames end in /i/, due to the medieval Italian habit of identifying families by the name of the ancestors in the plural (which have an -i suffix in Italian). For instance, Filippo from the Ormanno family (gli Ormanni) would be called Signore Filippo degli Ormanni (Mr. Filippo of the Ormannos). In time, the middle possessive portion ("of the") was dropped, but surnames became permanently pluralized and never referred to in the singular, even for a single person. Filippo Ormanno would therefore be known as Filippo Ormanni. Some families, however, opted to retain the possessive portion of their surnames, for instance Lorenzo de' Medici literally means "Lorenzo of the Medici" (de' is a contraction of dei, also meaning "of the".

Some common suffixes indicate endearment (which may also become pluralized and receive an -i ending), for example:

-ello/illo/etto/ino (diminutive "little"), e.g., Bernardino, Bernardello

-one (augmentative "big"), e.g., Mangione

-accio/azzo/asso (pejorative), e.g., Boccaccio.”

Possible Jewish Origin of the Italian surname Schiaparelli

Although they were an elite Italian family of intellectuals, the family closet might harbour a long-ago secret or even an acknowledged Jewish ancestor, because, of course, such a form might have evolved from the common Jewish surname Shapiro. Schiaparelli could be what happened to the common Jewish surname Shapiro, once it was transmuted into Italian and with an Italian affectionate diminutive –elli added to the name to make it appear more innately Italian. Every immigrant group performs various metamorphoses on its names to try to blend in. Often once such newcomers are established, they change their names back to their original forms.

Origin of Shapiro

Recorded in many forms including Sapir, Saphir, Saphire, Saphyr, Schapera, Shapera, Shapero, Shapiro, Spier, and Spire.

Shapiro may be locational from the German town of Speyer in Bavaria, a name which is supposed to describe a river lock or weir. Such a source is an ingenious suggestion but highly doubtful linguistically.

Shapiro may descend from Hebrew סַפִּיר sappir ‘a sapphire’ and hence be occupational as a name for a jeweler. In Biblical Hebrew sappir was lapis lazuli, one of the twelve precious stones set into the high priest’s breastplate, each one representing one of the twelve tribes of Israel.

And that’s our delving into the expansive and dashing Italian surname of Schiaparelli.