Family name origins & meanings
- Italian (Sicily) : occupational name for a muleteer (strictly speaking, a driver of hinnies, the offspring of a female donkey and a male horse), Italian bordonaro, Sicilian bburdunaru (from Latin burdonarius). The Sicilian word also means ‘tuna fishing net’, thus the name may have been a metonymic occupational name for a fisherman in some instances.
- Italian (Sicily) : from a derivative of bordone ‘pilgrim’s staff’, probably applied as a nickname for someone who had made a significant pilgrimage.