Taliaferro
An old Italian surname from a place-name, best known in the American South.
The #8,364 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 77,986 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Taliaferro is an Italian surname that comes from a place-name, usually explained as meaning something like "ironwork" or "forge" in medieval Italian. The name is often linked to an old form such as Tagliaferro, from tagliare "to cut" plus ferro "iron," though some historical spellings and regional forms make the exact development a little uncertain. In English-speaking countries the surname was reshaped in spelling and pronunciation, which is why the modern form looks so different from the likely original Italian source.
History
The name is especially associated with families who came from Italy into English-speaking regions, and in the United States it became established long ago, particularly in Virginia and other parts of the South. The unusual spelling has often led people to treat it as a highly distinctive family name. It is sometimes connected with the broader Italian surname pattern of occupational or descriptive names built from metalworking terms.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Despite its dramatic look, Taliaferro is traditionally pronounced with four syllables in English, not five or six.