Understanding Raucci – The Lineage of the Renowned and Glorious Wolf

For years I have wondered about the meaning of my last name. A sister of a high school friend told me that she came across it in a class at Yale and it meant something like hoarse voice, or one who speaks with a hoarse voice; while that is interesting, I never saw any documentation from her or any evidence from anywhere else that this is true.

In my own family, it became an ongoing joke- “Well you know, Raucci does mean ______ in Italian.” Anything could fill-in that blank as long as it fit the moment. A few examples from memory: hairy knuckles (the Germans would agree [see below]), jay-walks with pride, last one up from the table, and so on.

I remember looking into this and finding the Italian suffix “uccio” meaning “son of,” so clearly I was the son of Ra, the Egyptian Sun God, therefore son of the sun- great, easy, done. Of course, that doesn’t work (mostly because of how unfriendly the sun is to me). But I was getting closer.

From Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press

Raucci- Southern Italian: patronymic from a pet form of Rao, Rau.

Rau
1. German: nickname for a ruffian, earlier for a hairy person, from Middle High German ruch, ruhe, rouch ‘hairy’, ‘shaggy’, ‘rough’. (perhaps where ‘hoarse’ came from)
2. English: from a medieval personal name, a variant of Ralph.
3. Italian (Sicily): from a local variant of the personal name Rao, an old form of Ra(o)ul, composed of the Germanic elements rad ‘counsel’, ‘advice’ + wolf ‘wolf’. Compare Ralph.
4. Indian: variant of Rao.

Rao
1. Italian: from a reduced form of the personal name Radulfo, composed of hrod ‘renown’ + wulf ‘wolf’ (see Rolf).
2. Indian (southern and western states and Orissa): Hindu name found among several communities, from Sanskrit raja ‘king’. It is freely added by men to their forename in several communities of Maharashtra, Goa, and Andhra Pradesh.
3. Chinese : from the name of an area called Rao, which existed in the state of Zhao during the Warring States period (403–221 bc).

Rolf

English: from the Middle English personal name Rolf, composed of the Germanic elements hrod
‘renown’ + wulf ‘wolf’. This name was especially popular among Nordic peoples in the contracted form Hrólfr, and seems to have reached England by two separate channels; partly through its use among pre-Conquest Scandinavian settlers, partly through its popularity among the Normans, who, however, generally used
the form Rou(l) (see Rollo).

Rollo

North German: from a personal name, a contracted form of Rudolf, cognate with

1.Ralph English: from a Middle English personal name composed of Germanic rad ‘counsel’, ‘advice’ + wolf ‘wolf’. This was first introduced into England by Scandinavian settlers in the
Old Norse form Ráðulfr, and was reinforced after the Conquest by the Norman form Ra(d)ulf. Compare German Rudolf.