A lot of Italians Americanized their names when they came here from the other side. This was very common because it was easier to get work with a more American name and they ran into less prejudice.

Not only Italians Germans as well.

My Daddio was a German Jew. His name was Braun he changed it to Brown.

All my friends had Italian names. When we got stopped by the cops and were asked our names and I said Brown they thought I was giving them a phony name and they would rough me up. My so called friends got a kick out of that.

I met Susan Sarandon as a kid on a train. I thought she was very beautiful her skin was very dark. We just started to talk she told me she was an actor. She could not get enough parts she said because she was too ethnic.

She doesn't have dark completion now.

When I was a kid I had a dark complexion and I have curly hair my mother was a dark complexion women from Naples. When she went to Florida she came back real dark.

When I first met my wife she was not sure what nationality I was.

My best friend is Italian but he does not have an Italian last name its Williams. Original it was Guailairmo I probably misspelled it.

When Italians came here their sport was calcio soccer. They stopped following and embraced baseball.

I had a friend Joe Lombardi who never did that he founded the Italian league and the Brooklyn Italian soccer club. He did change the name of the club for a season to the Brooklyn Dodgers biggest mistake he ever made. He is in the US soccer hall of fame.