Bullets over Broadway

Everyone called him Tommy Brown, but that was not really his name.

It was a nickname, a mob monicker, but it really got confused. His name in Italian is Gaetano Lucchese, and the closest we get to that is Guy Lucchese, as the name is pronounced “Guy-tano,” and there is no English version of his forename.

So where did Tommy come from? Tanu is the diminutive of Gaetano, which some people confuse with Tommy. The Brown is a tag from a ubiquitous story that a booking officer, following an arrest in 1921, remarking on the fingers missing on one hand, said “We’ll call you ‘Three fingers like the baseball player Mordecai Brown.’”

He did thirty-three months in jail for this arrest, grand larceny, theft of an automotive. In his long career of wrongdoing, he served only one prison sentence.

This is how legends, myths, and nicknames are born. And he had a lot of names.

Such as Thomas Luckese (right), and Thomas Lucase, and Tom Branda, and Thomas Arra, as well as Thomas Lucchese. Which is often spelt with one c.

Entire story at: https://gangstersinc.org/blog/bullets-over-broadway