Taliaferro, also spelled Talliaferro, Tagliaferro, Talifero,Taliafero or Taliferro and sometimes anglicised to Tellifero, Tolliver (/ˈtɒlɪvər/TOL-iv-ər) or Toliver,[1] is a prominent family in eastern Virginia and Maryland. The Taliaferros (originally Tagliaferro[ˌtaʎʎaˈfɛrro], which means "ironcutter" in Italian) are one of the early families who settled in Virginia in the 17th century. They migrated from London,[2] where an ancestor had served as a musician in the court of Queen Elizabeth I. The surname in that line is believed to trace back to Bartholomew Taliaferro, a native of Venice and subject of the Doge of Venice, who settled in London and was made a denizen in 1562.[3][4]
The origins of the Taliaferro name were of interest to George Wythe, a Virginia colonial lawyer and classical scholar, who had married Elizabeth Taliaferro, the daughter of Richard Taliaferro. Wythe urged his former student and friend Thomas Jefferson to investigate the name when Jefferson traveled to Italy. Jefferson later reported to Wythe that he had found two families of the name in Tuscany, and that the family was of Italian origin.[5] Jefferson enclosed his sketch of the coat of arms of the Tagliaferro family as reported to him by a friend in Florence, Italy.[6]
Etymology
Unknown to Jefferson, Taliaferro appears to arise due to a transcription error and a variation of the Italian surname Tagliaferro, which is, even today, widespread in Italy especially in Lombardy, but it also has representation in the Bolognese, Florentine, and Lazio regions. The name Tagliaferro, less common, has families in Vicenza, Gorizia, in the province of Rome and in Campania. A slight variation, Tagliafierro, is also typical of the Campania region, Caserta in particular.
From the etymological point of view, the term tagliaferro indicates a soldier skilled in piercing the opponent or the shield of the adversary with his weapons, which cleave/slice medieval armor, such as with a stroke of ax or sword. In reality, these surnames may also derive from the medieval name Tagliaferro, that is, the Italianization of the French name Taillefer, made famous by the chivalric epic (the name Tagliaferro, on the other hand, is also mentioned in the eighteenth-century drama La Cecchina, by Niccolò Piccinni).[7]
Taliaferro Hall, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States, Named for Thomas Hardy Taliaferro. Dean/College of Engineering; Dean/College of Arts and Sciences
Fictional characters
Tulliver
Maggie Tulliver, in George Eliot's classic novel, The Mill on the Floss, a dark-complexioned miller's daughter
Tagliaferro
Roy Tagliaferro, an alias of the serial killer Red John, in The Mentalist
Taliaferro
Paul Taliaferro, a character in David Weber and Steve White's science-fiction novel The Shiva Option (2002)
Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan, a character in Rudyard Kipling's short story "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888)
Penelope Taliaferro Russell, secretary to John Joseph Bonforte in Robert A. Heinlein's Double Star (1956)
In Heinlein's The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985), two secret agents prepare to meet a person who uses a codename which sounds like Tolliver. One of the agents suggests that the spelling might be Taliaferro, and recites the name's convoluted etymology for the other agent.
Roderick Taliaferro, the title character in George Cram Cook's first novel, Roderick Taliaferro: A Story of Maximilian's Empire (1903), with illustrations by Seymour M. Stone
Tolliver
Tolliver Groat, Junior Postman, later Senior Postman and Postal Inspector in Ankh-Morpork, the fictional capital of Discworld
Tolliver Lang, the stepbrother of the protagonist of The Harper Connelly Mysteries
Ben Tolliver, a recurring character in the Gunsmoke radio and television series and the protagonist of the episode, "Ben Tolliver's Stud" (ep. 206×11 on television and ep. 166(46) on radio)
Morton Tolliver, a character in Christopher Kenworthy's Dead or Alive: A Wild West Omnibus novel, of the Western Adventure Omnibus
Pendleton Tolliver, a fictional character in Ted Bell's short story "The Powder Monkey", compiled in the anthology Thriller: Stories to Keep You Up All Night
Steven Tolliver, owner of a sailing ship line in Cecil B. DeMille's film Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
Toby Tolliver, a character in early 20th-century American theatrical tent shows
Jim Tolliver, fictional undercover Bureau of Investigation agent who pursues Ennoch “Nucky” Thompson and Eli Thompson in Season 4, Boardwalk Empire. He claims to be from Cedar Rapids, Iowa; his true name is revealed, along with details that he previously served in Army Intelligence in World War I and that his brother was a vice admiralty lawyer in Washington D.C. Jim Tolliver attended law school with J. Edgar Hoover, whom he perceived as a rival.
^Wagner, Anthony; Andrus, F. S. Andrus (January 1969). "The Origin of the Family of Taliaferro". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 77 (1): 22. Part One.
^Rossoni, Ettore, L'Origine dei Cognomi Italiani, Storia ed Etimologia, Melegnano, (2014), p. 3034
Surname list
This page lists people with the surnameTaliaferro. If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name(s) to the link.
