I keep meaning to post this.  In the US, when they ask about our name, Zanrè, people say “that doesn’t sound Italian”.  And indeed it doesn’t.  Even up here in BorgoTaro it’s pronounced more French and less Italian.  There is even some family lore about the family originating with a pair of brothers who came to this region with Napoleon in the late 1790s.  More on that someday when we ferret out some of the details.

In any event, here in BorgoTaro, when someone asks our name (knowing that we’re “not from around here”), they always say “oh yeah – that’s a very local name”.

There are many, many (tanti, tanti) Zanrès here.  I suspect that they are all related if you get back far enough.  A very famous Zanrè was a partisan leader during WWI.  There is a street named after him.

When we first walked into our new apartment, we had to laugh.

While someday we might want to change the name on the door (and the bell, and the mailbox), since we’re currently the only Zanrès in the building, we’ve just left it for now 🙂