| Meaning | Two possible origins: (1) from Italian pepe, pepper — a spice merchant, grower, or someone with a fiery character; (2) a hypocoristic of Peppe, the Neapolitan/southern Italian nickname for Giuseppe (Joseph) |
| Origin type | Nickname surname — either from a trade (spice merchant) or a physical/personality descriptor, or from a given name (Giuseppe) |
| Language origin | Italian, from Latin piper (pepper); or from Hebrew Yosef via Italian Giuseppe |
| Regional concentration | Campania (especially Naples and Caserta); Abruzzo; Molise; Lazio; also present in Sicily and Puglia |
| Estimated frequency | Moderately common across central and southern Italy; well-established in Italian-American communities |
| Variants | Peppo, Peppa, Peppe, Pepino, Pepitone, Piperino, De Pepe |
Pepe has two distinct possible origins, and both are plausible depending on the region and the specific family. The first and most immediately striking is from pepe — the Italian word for pepper, derived from Latin piper. Black pepper was one of the most valuable commodities in the medieval Mediterranean world; before the spice trade was democratised by Portuguese and Spanish exploration in the 15th and 16th centuries, pepper was a luxury item of enormous monetary value, used to preserve meat, season food, and pay debts. A spice merchant who traded in pepper, or perhaps a person nicknamed for their fiery temper or their dark complexion, could readily acquire the surname Pepe. Southern Italian naming traditions were direct and physical in this way, and spice-trade-related surnames appear across the Mezzogiorno.
The second origin is more prosaic but perhaps more common in Campanian usage: Peppe is the standard Neapolitan and southern Italian hypocoristic — the affectionate nickname — for Giuseppe (Joseph). Just as Peppo in Tuscany and Beppe in the north serve as diminutives of Giuseppe, Peppe is the distinctively southern Italian form. A man whose given name was Giuseppe but who was universally known as Peppe might see that nickname become the hereditary surname of his descendants. This path — from given name to nickname to surname — is one of the most common surname-formation patterns in Italian history.
The surname Pepe is most heavily concentrated in Campania — in the Naples metropolitan area, in the Caserta province to the north, and in the Apennine villages of Avellino and Benevento. It also appears with notable frequency in Abruzzo and Molise, the two regions immediately to the north of Campania, which shared many of the same economic and cultural conditions that produced the great emigration. The Campanian and Molisan emigrations to the United States were closely linked: communities in the upper Volturno valley, the Matese mountains, and the Molisan hinterland participated in the same chain migration patterns that sent Campanian families to New York and New Jersey.
Pepe appears in Neapolitan notarial records from the 14th century, initially in the mercantile context of the city's spice trade, and subsequently as a hereditary family name in the urban parishes of the Mezzogiorno. The surname is documented in the tax and administrative records of the Aragonese Kingdom of Naples from the 15th century onward.
Pepe families arrived in the United States in the great wave of southern Italian emigration between 1880 and 1915. The surname appears in Ellis Island passenger manifests primarily from Campania and Abruzzo/Molise, and in New York City settlement records concentrated in Manhattan's Lower East Side and in the Brooklyn and Bronx communities that formed the second and third generation of Italian-American settlement.
New Jersey received a significant concentration of Pepe families, particularly from the Molisan and Campanian Apennine villages. The town of Vineland in Cumberland County, New Jersey — founded partly as an agricultural community for Italian immigrants — has Pepe family records from the early 20th century. Connecticut's industrial cities, particularly New Haven and Hartford, also received Pepe families from the Campanian and Molisan emigration.
In American popular culture, the surname Pepe is widely recognized through the comedian Joe Pepe, various Italian-American restaurateurs who made the name synonymous with quality Italian food — most notably Frank Pepe of New Haven, Connecticut, whose Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana (established 1925) is credited with creating the New Haven-style apizza that became one of the most celebrated regional pizza traditions in the United States.
For Pepe families, the primary research focus is Campania (Naples, Caserta, Avellino, Benevento, Salerno provinces) and Molise (Campobasso and Isernia provinces). The Portale Antenati provides free access to digitised civil records from 1866 for most comuni in both regions. Passenger manifests from Ellis Island identify the specific comune of last Italian residence — essential for narrowing research to the correct archive.
Because Peppe is a common nickname for Giuseppe, be alert to family members who may appear in Italian records as Giuseppe and in American records as Joseph Pepe. FamilySearch holds microfilm collections of Campanian and Molisan parish records; both regions are reasonably well represented. The World War I draft registration records (1917–1918) and the New York State censuses of 1905 and 1915 are particularly valuable for confirming Italian birthplace and family connections in early Italian-American settlement.
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