Of all European surnames, Italian are the ones which present the greatest challenge to the etymologist. Italy was the last nation to adopt a fixed form of hereditary surname, and even then it was complicated by the addition of an immense range of single, double and triple patronymics, which were added to the original "base", this being often reduced to two letters! However, in the case of D'Aguanno, believed to be Sicilian, we have one of the rarer locational or residential surnames, of Latin origins, and deriving from "Auget" meaning "the look-out place"; a village called Aguanno being apparently located in Sicily. The prefix "d'" or "di", as with the French "de" or the German "von" indicates aristocratic and landowning origins, although strictly speaking this is not relevant to the name origin. Examples of the surname recording include: Andrea Aguanno, who married Vincenza Giglio at Vita, Trapani, Sicily; this area being an epicentre of the surname. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Francesco Paolo Aguanno, which was dated August 11th 1849, a witness at Vita, Trapani, Sicily, Italy, during the reign of Pope Pius X1, elected June 16th 1846, 1846 - 1878. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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