Macrì is one of Calabria's most characteristic surnames — a name that reveals the deep Greek heritage of southern Calabria, the region of Italy still known as Magna Graecia (Greater Greece). The Greek word makrós means tall, long, or great, and in the Byzantine Greek communities that dominated southern Calabria until the 12th century, it was used as a descriptive personal name or epithet that eventually became hereditary.
The Calabrian town of Bova Marina and the surrounding Grecanico communities maintained Greek speech and culture for centuries after the Norman conquest, and Macrì is one of several surnames in the region that preserves that Greek heritage directly. Macrì families emigrated from Reggio Calabria province to the United States, particularly New York and New Jersey.
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