Worldwide distribution of the Sorio surname

The two stories of the Sorio surname

The Sorio surname is found today in more than 40 countries of the world, but its distribution tells two distinct stories that never crossed paths.

The Venetian diaspora (in burgundy). The original historical branch was formed in the Veneto between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, deriving from the toponym Sorio, which in turn evolves from the Latin Sanctus Georgius. From Italy, through the great transoceanic migrations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the surname spread to Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and, to a lesser extent, the United States.

The Hispanic homonymy (in ochre). On 21 November 1849 the Spanish governor of the Philippines, Narciso Clavería, issued a decree obliging millions of Filipinos to choose a surname from the Catálogo Alfabético de Apellidos, which contained 61,000 Spanish surnames. Among them was also Sorio. From that moment, thousands of Filipinos bear this surname with no genealogical link to the Venetian Sorios.

The numbers: today the Philippines is the first country in the world for number of Sorios (3,646), followed by Italy (1,180) and Brazil (727). But if we count only the descendants of the authentic Venetian branch, Italy is and remains the surname's centre of gravity.