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Greetings,
You asked for information about the name "Cantu". Here's what we found.
As we noted when we replied to your first letter, our sources on medieval Italian names are pretty limited. But we think we've got the answer to your question.
We could not find any reference to "Cantu" as an Italian surname, but we did find that there is a town of "Cantù" in the province of Como. Many Italian surnames derive from place names, so this is a likely source for your name.
We also followed the trail you had suggested. We found the same reference to "Cantucci" that you cited, from the 1427 census of Florence [1]. We also found an entry in a 1285 Latin census of Perugia reading "Libra Cantutii Astoni est 300". [2] "Cantutii" appears to be the genitive form of the latinization of "Cantutio" or "Cantuccio". "Cantucci" could very likely be a likely patronymic surname derived from this given name.
The suffix "-uccio" is a common diminutive ending added to Italian given names (e.g. Carluccio, Petruccio). [3] If we assume this origin for this part of the name, then we are left with "Canto" as the root element, either as a given name or as a short form of a longer given name. Unfortunately, we find no direct evidence of "Canto" as a given name.
"Cantú" is also a common modern Hispanic surname. Unfortunately, our sources on Spanish surnames are even poorer than our Italian sources, so we cannot trace the origin of this modern name.
We hope this has been helpful for you. If you come across any new references on medieval Italian names, please let us know. We're always hoping to improve our library. Research for this letter was provided by Willem Gerritsz van Wije, Talan Gwynek, and Alan Fairfax.
For the Academy of Saint Gabriel,
Arval Benicoeur
References:
[1] Online Catasto of 1427. See also an index to the names in the Catasto at http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/ferrante/catasto
[2] Alberto Grohmann, "L'imposizione diretta nei comuni dell'Italia centrale nel XIII secolo : la libra di Perugia del 1285" (Ecole francaise de Rome ; Perugia : Deputazione di storia patria per l'Umbria, 1986).
[3] Joseph G. Fucilla, "Our Italian Surnames" (Evanston, Illinois: Chandlers, Inc., 1949).