This surname of ABRUZZO was a locational name meaning 'one who came from ABRUZZI' a region in Italy. Other spellings of the name include ABRUZZI and ABRUZZESE. Many families acquired a place-name as a surname from different sources. The original bearer of the name may have lived or worked by some topographic formation or landscape feature, such as a large tree or rock or by a river, lake, hill or valley. Early workshops or stores were generally in the man's home, the place where he lived and worked were usually the same. He might have derived his name from the village or town he had formerly dwelt in, and acquired the reputation of being from that place. Thirdly he may have owned or was lord of the village or manor. In most cases it is impossible to know whether an ancestor owned the manor, or had merely lived or worked in that place. The origins of Italian surnames are not clear, and much work remains to be done on medieval Italian records. It seems that fixed bynames, in some cases hereditary, were in use in the Venetian Republic by the end of the 10th century. Central Italian heraldry has been much influenced by the church. Families deriving their titles from popes have incorporated papal insignia in their arms, notably the papal tiara and the crossed keys. The heraldry is reflected by the history of the country which has been used as a battlefield for successive German, French, Spanish and Austrian invaders. Italian heraldry has however developed certain characteristics shown by the use of horse-head shaped shields which were put on the foreheads of horses at tournaments. Crests are rare but when they do appear are quite ostentatious. As the agricultural depression of southern Italy worsened towards the end of the 19th century, people began to escape to the New World. The exodus started in earnest in 1887 with Brazil and other parts of Latin America being the original destinations. By 1893, the economy had improved in the United States and people headed there from Italy in greater and greater numbers. In 1898 there were more Italian immigrants to the USA than from any other country. In the post war era, more than a quarter of Italians left the country for a new life. They joined a flood of immigrants to America which was averaging a million a year in the pre war years.