Are Lewis and Peter Capaldi related? And also, what's with all the Italian surnames in Scotland?

[BlackAmericanoNoSugar]

Two completely trivial questions. I just saw the video for Lewis Capaldi's song and Peter Capaldi is in it, so I wondered if they were family and that's why.

Also there are a lot of famous Scots with Italian surnames but completely Scottish backgrounds (as far as I can tell). Was there a huge influx a few generations back or just a few Italian families that were very artsy and so Italian surnames are disproportionally represented among famous Scots. I can think of a load off the top of my head, Nardini, Conti (x2), Iannucci, Nutini, and I'm not even that good with names or knowing about famous people.

Welsh Italian- Claudia Fragipane

Isn't Claudia Fragapane Bristolian??

I grew up in a welsh mining village in the arse end of nowhere. We had two Italian cafes and I grew up knowing the taste of proper ice cream and ”frothi coffi” way before most of Britain had caught on to the cappuccino.

MP for Gower (Wales) Tonia Antoniazzi.

Famous Welsh Italians

Ivor Novello en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivor_Novello

Joe Calzaghe as mentioned by pp

And some others: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_Italians

Valvona and Crolla the Edinburgh deli was founded by immigrant Italians at end of nineteenth century early twentieth in fact there is a book of their history called Dear Francesca by Mary Contini which describes what led up to them opening their Deli in 1934

Loads came to Ireland too.
I believe the aim was to go to America but they only had the money for the first part of the journey.
Many families planned to work up the price of the rest of the journey.
I suppose the Catholic angle was a consideration at first but once a few families had settled others would join them.

DH is from Bedford, which has a huge Italian population (there was an Italian Consulate there at one point). He said that entire villages were brought over to work in factories and the brick works there.

I haven't really met many people with Italian surnames in Ireland, although there are quite a few takeaways with Italian names (like Romayos and Borzas) which are family businesses.

Over 10 percent of Bedfords population is of Italian descent. That's about 20000 people.

I’m half Italian-half Scottish. Family name of Lucchesi (from Lucca). Loads of Scots-Italians are from a small town called Barga in Tuscany.

Don’t think Ivor Novello was of Italian descent. The Novello was his mother’s middle name. She was named after an opera singer called Clara Novello.

Many of the Italians in Wales came from Bardi. Supposedly much of the wood used for pit props in the collieries came from the woods around Bardi and the Italians came over with the wood.

I think it's a very interesting part of our shared history that's almost been written out. If it wasn't for the beautiful Italian faces and names regularly cropping up in popular culture in the UK today, most of us wouldn't even be aware.

Svalberg, the boat that went down was the Arandora Star. My mum’s uncle was on it. The Glasgow Italian community had a window installed in the Catholic cathedral - to mark the fact that so many of their community died. Of course it wasn’t just Italians- my uncle wasn’t Italian descent. It’s an interesting but awful story.

@MrsSchadenfreude my DH Has family in Bedford and lots from his village in Italy.

Large amount of Glaswegian Italians from Lucca and Barga ....
Italian influences and culture really enhance our great city .... couldn’t imagine our city without them ..(Very proud Italian speaker here )

like a previous poster I’m saddened that current immigrants are still treated shabbily now .....
so much for progress ...

I TAUGHT PAOLO NUTINI - genuinely shouted that cos it's the most exciting thing in my otherwise humdrum life!!
It wasn't school (although he went to the same school as my kids go to now)
I taught Italian at the weekends to children of Scots-Italian parents.
He was 11yrs old and dead cocky but loveable!
I remember teaching his class "Old Macdonald" inItalian but I don't remember thinking he was a rare chanter!
Lots of schools in West if Scotland still offer Italian as a MFL.

Spiteri is a Maltese name, I think.

Sidolis in Shropshire, too

Is Jim Capaldi related to Peter? I know I could look that up but, weirdly, was thinking about it the other day.

There was a big number of Italians who emigrated to Scotland, especially from Lucca and Frosinone. They usually came to work in the cafes. I think Glasgow was popular because it was more Catholic.

I was struggling to translate some of the icecream flavours for my boys in a gelateria in Barga, Tuscany, a few years ago when the woman behind the counter piped up in English in a really broad Glaswegian accent and translated the ones I was stuck on. Turns out that there are very strong ties between Barga and Scotland, especially Glasgow. There is a surprising amount of tartan in the shops and when they have their town food festival in the summer (normally a weekend long event, most towns have one) they serve fish and chips, or so our hosts where we were staying nearby told us.

I’ve just seen sweetkitty and babbi’s posts, so mine was superfluous.

So many Italian chip shop owners in Scotland