Quadrio

Recorded in a number of spellings including Quadara, Quadri, Quadrio, Quadrella, and possibly the Spanish Quadrillero, this is a surname of Italian origins. Italian surnames are the most difficult of all European surnames to research with accuracy. They often have quite different meanings in different parts of the country, and in many cases have changed their spelling almost at will over the centuries, adding both diminutives and patronymic suffix between generations. It is probable that in Sicily and the south of Italy the name derives from the Roman (latin) word "quadrimus" meaning four years old, but in the transferred sense of a surname "one who is youthful", although in other parts of the country the origination may be "quadraro", and hence occupational for a maker of chairs. Italian surnames ending in the patronymic "-i" tend to be from the north, whilst endings in "-o" are usually from the south, but in Venice and Piedmont for instance, both are found equally. To add to the problems of research, until 1860 Italy was a loose federation of individual states, with no central organisation. Record keeping was at best erratic and usually non existent. Such examples of the surname recordings as we have been able to identify and taken from early surviving church registers include Salvatice delli Quadri, of Agnone, Campobasso, on November 2nd 1573, and later Marina Quadara, at Santa Marina Salina, Messina, on December 12th 1853.