Powerful Mafia Last Names

[Klaudia Aricas]

TheFive Families refer to five Italian American Mafia crime families that operate in New York City. In 1931, the five families were organized by Salvatore Maranzano following his victory in the Castellammarese War.

Maranzano reorganized the Italian American gangs in New York City into the Maranzano, Profaci, Mangano, Luciano, and Gagliano families, which are now known as the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese families, respectively. Each family had a demarcated territory and an organizationally structured hierarchy and reported to the same overarching governing entity. Initially, Maranzano intended each family's boss to report to him as the capo dei capi ("boss of all the bosses").

However, this led to his assassination that September, and that role was abolished for the Commission, a ruling committee established by Lucky Luciano to oversee all Mafia activities in the United States and to mediate conflicts between families. It consisted of the bosses of the Five Families as well as the bosses of the Chicago Outfit and the Buffalo crime family. In 1963, Joseph Valachi publicly disclosed the existence of New York City's Five Families at the Valachi hearings. Since then, a few other crime families have been able to become powerful or notable enough to rise to a level comparable to that of the Five Families, holding or sharing the unofficial designation of Sixth Family.

In the 1920s, Mafia operations in the U.S. were controlled by Giuseppe "Joe The Boss" Masseria, whose faction consisted mainly of gangsters from Sicily and the Calabria and Campania regions of Southern Italy. Masseria's faction included Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Albert "Mad Hatter" Anastasia, Vito Genovese, Alfred Mineo, Willie Moretti, Joe Adonis, and Frank Costello. However, powerful Sicilian mafioso Don Vito Cascio Ferro decided to make a bid for control of Mafia operations.[1]

From his base in Castellammare del Golfo, he sent Salvatore Maranzano to seize control. The Castellammarese faction in the U.S. included Joseph "Joe Bananas" Bonanno, Stefano "The Undertaker" Magaddino, Joseph Profaci, and Joe Aiello.[2] As it became more and more evident that the two factions would clash for leadership of the Mafia, they each sought to recruit more followers to support them.[3]

In early 1931, Luciano made the decision to take out Masseria. The war had been going poorly for Masseria, and Luciano saw an opportunity to switch allegiance. In a secret deal with Maranzano, Luciano agreed to engineer Masseria's death in return for receiving Masseria's rackets and becoming Maranzano's second-in-command.[8] Joe Adonis had joined the Masseria faction and when Masseria heard about Luciano's betrayal, he approached Adonis about killing Luciano. However, Adonis instead warned Luciano about the murder plot.[9] On April 15, 1931, Masseria was killed at Nuova Villa Tammaro, a Coney Island restaurant in Brooklyn. While they played cards, Luciano allegedly excused himself to the bathroom, with the gunmen reportedly being Anastasia, Genovese, Adonis, and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel;[10] Ciro "The Artichoke King" Terranova drove the getaway car, but legend has it that he was too shaken up to drive away and had to be shoved out of the driver's seat by Siegel.[11][12] With Maranzano's blessing, Luciano took over Masseria's gang and became Maranzano's lieutenant, ending the Castellammarese War.[8]

With Masseria gone, Maranzano reorganized the Italian American gangs in New York City into the Five Families headed by Luciano, Profaci, Gagliano, Mangano, and himself. Maranzano called a meeting of crime bosses in Wappingers Falls, New York,[when?] where he declared himself capo di tutti i capi ("boss of all bosses").[8] Maranzano also whittled down the rival families' rackets in favor of his own. Luciano appeared to accept these changes, but was merely biding his time before removing Maranzano.[13] Although Maranzano was slightly more forward-thinking than Masseria, Luciano had come to believe that Maranzano was even greedier and more hidebound than Masseria had been.[8]

By September 1931, Maranzano realized Luciano was a threat, and hired Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll, an Irish gangster, to kill him.[8] However, Lucchese alerted Luciano that he was marked for death.[8] On September 10, 1931, Maranzano ordered Luciano, Genovese, and Costello to come to his office at the 230 Park Avenue in Manhattan. Convinced that Maranzano planned to murder them, Luciano decided to act first.[14] He sent four Jewish gangsters to Maranzano's office whose faces were unknown to Maranzano's people. They had been secured with the aid of Jewish mobsters Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel.[15] Disguised as government agents, two of the gangsters disarmed Maranzano's bodyguards. The other two, aided by Lucchese, who was there to point Maranzano out, stabbed the boss multiple times before shooting him.[16][17] This assassination was the first of what would later be fabled as the "Night of the Sicilian Vespers".[16]

After Maranzano's murder in 1931, Luciano called a meeting in Chicago.[18][19][20] Although there would have been few objections had Luciano declared himself capo di tutti i capi, he abolished the title, believing the position created trouble among the families and would make himself a target for another ambitious challenger.[21] Luciano's goals with the Commission were to quietly maintain his own power over all the families, and to prevent future gang wars; the bosses approved the idea of the Commission.[19] The Commission would consist of a "board of directors" to oversee all Mafia activities in the United States and serve to mediate conflicts between families.[19][22]

The Commission consisted of seven family bosses: the leaders of New York's Five Families: Charlie "Lucky" Luciano, Vincent Mangano, Tommy Gagliano, Joseph Bonanno, and Joe Profaci; Chicago Outfit boss Al Capone; and Buffalo family boss Stefano Magaddino.[19][22] Charlie Luciano was appointed chairman of the Commission. The Commission agreed to hold meetings every five years or when they needed to discuss family problems.[19]

The five Mafia families in New York City are still active, albeit less powerful. The peak of the Mafia in the United States was during the 1940s, and the 1950s, until the year 1970 when the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO Act) was enacted.[23] The specific reason for the RICO Act was to stop the mafia and organized crime as a whole. The act was effective, and led to a large portion of the members who were arrested turning into informants.[24] This effect compounded over time.[25]

In 1963, Joseph Valachi publicly disclosed the existence of New York City's Five Families at the Valachi hearings. According to Valachi, the original bosses of the Five Families were Charles Luciano, Tommaso Gagliano, Joseph Profaci, Salvatore Maranzano, and Vincent Mangano. At the time of his testimony in 1963, Valachi revealed that the current bosses of the Five Families were Tommy Lucchese, Vito Genovese, Joseph Colombo, Carlo Gambino, and Joe Bonanno. These have since been the names most commonly used to refer to the New York Five Families, despite years of overturn and changing bosses in each.[26]

The crime families historically operated throughout the New York metropolitan area, but mainly within New York City. In the state of New York, the gangs have increased their criminal rackets on Long Island, including both Nassau and Suffolk counties, and the counties of Westchester, Rockland, and Albany. They also maintain a strong presence in the state of New Jersey.[28] The Five Families are also active in South Florida, Connecticut, Las Vegas, and Massachusetts.

Popularized by Mars Bruno, the famous singer, and musician, Bruno is one of the most famous Italian surnames. Derived from the Italian word for brown, Bruno came under the category of surnames derived from nicknames and was given to people with brown hair. Bruno is also a trendy first name in many countries including the US.

This toponymic surname is inspired by the city of Caivano situated near Naples, Italy. This surname can make an interesting given name for your child as it is unique and also has the typical Italian ring to it.

The appellation Marchetti, derived from Marchino or Marcus, refers to the Roman god of war and is a cognomen. DeMarchi, Marcantoni, Marcantonio, Marcato, Marchel, Marchelli, Marcone, Marconi, Marcovic, Marcovich, Marcoz, Marcozzi, and Marcucci are some of the variations of the moniker.

Originally deriving from Martinus, or commonly known as Mars, the Roman god of war and fertility, the name has become famously linked to a drink. This surname would be pretty for your lovely baby girl. The other familiar variations of this surname are De Martini, De Martinis, Martino, Martinetti, Martin, Martina, Martinelli, and many more.

This Italian last name is the shortened form of Giuseppe, Italian for Joseph. This is a biblical surname, as in it is based on the name of a character from the Bible. There are a number of recorded versions of Pepe like Papi, Peppin, Peri, and Pupa.

The topographic surname Riva is derived from the Latin term ripa, which means river bank or shore. It was probably the family name of those who lived near a water body. Rivas, Rivero, and Rivera are some of its Spanish equivalents.

Would you want to take your baby daughter to Scotland someday? You then might want to adopt this surname as a nickname for her as Scotti was initially given to people hailing from Scotland. Another common version of Scotti is Scotto.

surnames:

Murden - sounds like murder

[name_m]Thornton[/name_m] - thorns

Thornsbury - thorns

Cesarini - related to [name_m]Caesar[/name_m], which if not villainous at least seems powerful

MacArthur - similar to Cesarini, it just seems powerful to me

Redgrave and other names ending in -grave.

[name_m]Graves[/name_m]

Terrenoire - means black land/earth in [name_m]French[/name_m]

[name_m]Bramwell[/name_m] - makes me think of [name_m]Bram[/name_m] [name_m]Stoker[/name_m] la [name_m]Dracula[/name_m]

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