LODICO GENEALOGY INDEX PAGE
Origins of the name LODICO from the Petralia’s of the
Madonie Region of Sicily
The surname is widespread in the two
Petralias since ancient times.
In Petralia Sottana, in the "civil registry"
of the seventeenth century, it is found in the "Laudico" version.
Three possible etymologies are
hypothesized:
1) could be a patronymic and derive
from the Nordic name Ludwig, Lodovico;
2) It could derive from the Latin
"laudes dico", in affinity with the word "laudicenus", with
the sense of a complimented and interested person.
However, none of these
interpretations explains why the two Lodico and Laudico versions coexisted even
in the same historical periods,
nor why the Lodico surname is found almost
exclusively in Sicily,
with a high concentration in the Madonie, and not in
other areas invaded by the Normans, or subject to the Roman Empire.
3) To these questions instead answers
one last hypothesis: the surname derives from "Laodikeia" (in Greek:
Λαοδικεία) or "Laodicea",
a name used by the Hellenistic dynasty of
the Seleucids and was therefore imported locally from Hellenistic or Arab
settlers,
to indicate their city of origin.
After the death of Alexander, the
Great, on most of his domains in 323 BC his general Seleucus I took over,
which
gave life to the Seleucid empire, including Syria, Persia and Asia Minor, and
which also extended to the Sicilian Greek colonies.
Seleucus I, in memory of his mother
Laodice, founded five cities named Laodikèia.
They were also created in Greece.
The most populous still exists in Syria and retains the name of al-Lādhiqiyya.
A proof of this last interpretation
is found in some examples of the surname "Laudica",
found in
inscriptions of ancient Rome, and which scholars agree to be of Hellenistic
origin.
Centuries later, a fraction of
Petralia Soprana, Santa Caterina LoDico, took its name from the LoDico families
who had created it.
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