Taliaferro, also spelled Talliaferro, Tagliaferro, Talifero,Taliafero or Taliferro and sometimes anglicised to Tellifero, Tolliver ( ) or Toliver, is a prominent family in eastern Virginia and Maryland. The Taliaferros (originally , which means "ironcutter" in Italian) are one of the early families who settled in Virginia in the 17th century. They migrated from London, where an ancestor had served as a musician in the court of Queen Elizabeth I. The surname in that line is believed to trace back to Bartholomew Taliaferro, a native of Venice and subject of the Doge of Venice, who settled in London and was made a denizen in 1562.
The origins of the Taliaferro name were of interest to George Wythe, a Virginia colonial lawyer and classical scholar, who had married Elizabeth Taliaferro, the daughter of Richard Taliaferro. Wythe urged his former student and friend Thomas Jefferson to investigate the name when Jefferson traveled to Italy. Jefferson later reported to Wythe that he had found two families of the name in Tuscany, and that the family was of Italian origin. Jefferson enclosed his sketch of the coat of arms of the Tagliaferro family as reported to him by a friend in Florence, Italy.
Etymology
Unknown to Jefferson, Taliaferro appears to arise due to a transcription error and a variation of the Italian surname Tagliaferro, which is, even today, widespread in Italy especially in Lombardy, but it also has representation in the Bolognese, Florentine, and Lazio regions. The name Tagliaferro, less common, has families in Vicenza, Gorizia, in the province of Rome and in Campania. A slight variation, Tagliafierro, is also typical of the Campania region, Caserta in particular.
From the etymological point of view, the term tagliaferro indicates a soldier skilled in piercing the opponent or the shield of the adversary with his weapons, which cleave/slice medieval armor, such as with a stroke of ax or sword. In reality, these surnames may also derive from the medieval name Tagliaferro, that is, the Italianization of the French name Taillefer, made famous by the chivalric epic (the name Tagliaferro, on the other hand, is also mentioned in the eighteenth-century drama La Cecchina, by Niccolò Piccinni).
People with the name
Given name
It is the first name of the following persons: Taliaferro Clark, a doctor during the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Toliver Craig, Jr., representative in the Kentucky General Assembly Toliver Craig, Sr. (first called Taliaferro Craig), 18th-century frontiersman and militia officer Taliaferro Preston Shaffner, 19th-century self-proclaimed colonel, inventor and publisher
Middle name
It is the middle name of the following persons: William Close (William Taliaferro Close), late surgeon who worked in Africa, father of actress Glenn Close Robert M. T. Hunter (Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter), U.S. Senator and Confederate Secretary of State Booker T. Jones (Booker Taliaferro Jones, Jr.), musician, composer, frontman for Booker T. and the MGs Sam Rayburn (Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn), 20th-century Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John T. Thompson (John Taliaferro Thompson), early 20th-century U.S. Army officer who invented Thompson submachine gun George T. Ward, (George Taliaferro Ward), planter and politician from Florida and a colonel in the Confederate army during the American Civil War Booker T. Washington (Booker Taliaferro Washington), postbellum African-American political leader, educator, orator, author, and ex-slave
Surname
It is the surname of the following persons:
Taliaferro
Adam Taliaferro, college football player severely injured during a game
Al Taliaferro, comic-strip artist
Benjamin Taliaferro, early 19th-century U.S. Representative from Georgia
Chris Taliaferro, Chicago alderman
Edith Taliaferro, actress
George Taliaferro, NFL player
Gabriëlle Andrée Iglesias Velayos y Taliaferro, garden designer and landscape architect Hardin E. Taliaferro, humorist and Baptist preacher James G. Taliaferro, 19th-century lawyer, newspaper publisher, and judge in Louisiana James P. Taliaferro, early 20th-century U.S. Senator from Florida John Taliaferro, antebellum U.S. Representative from Virginia Lawrence Taliaferro, United States frontier agent Lorenzo Taliaferro, former running back for the Baltimore Ravens Mabel Taliaferro, actress Ray Taliaferro, radio host Richard Taliaferro, colonial architect in Williamsburg, Virginia R. Catesby Taliaferro, philosopher and mathematician Walter R. Taliaferro, pioneer U.S. Army aviator William B. Taliaferro, Confederate States of America general