Several years ago, one of our Mandile cousins gave us a copy of this certificate, which contains
information on the meaning of the name 'Mandile'.
If you're part of the Mandile family and you'd like a larger version of the file to print, please contact us via
the Contact page.
This certificate proposes that the name 'Mandile' is derived from words meaning 'kitchen cloth' or 'handkerchief'.
The definition on Ancestry.com is a little more glamorous:
Mandile Southern Italian: from the medieval Greek mandilin, meaning 'headscarf'. Presumably a
metonymic occupational name for someone who sold scarves or a nickname for someone who habitually
wore a scarf. Mandilas is also found as a Greek family name, with derivatives such as
Mandilakis.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN
0-19-508137-4
Kath often speculated that the name 'Mandile' could be derived from the German/Austrian name 'Mandel'. This name
and its variations have totally different meanings to the Greek-derived name:
Mandel German, Dutch, and Jewish (Ashkenazic): from Middle High German mandel, Middle Dutch
mandel, or Yiddish mandl meaning 'almond'. This could have been a topographic name
for someone who lived by an almond tree or a metonymic occupational name for a seller of almonds.
In the case of the Jewish name, it is one of the many ornamental surnames referring to different
types of trees and their fruit. This is also found as a Slovenian name in the form
Mandelj.
German: possibly a habitational name from any of various places named Mandel, for example
near Bingen, or Mandeln. South German and Austrian: variant of Mandl, meaning 'small man'. Dutch: from Middle Dutch mandel(e), a term denoting a certain number of sheaves of
harvested wheat (12–15). Jewish (Ashkenazic): variant of Mendel, meaning 'man'.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN
0-19-508137-4
Recently we received an email from a man in Boston whose mother was a Mandile from Salina. According to his mother,
the name Mandile refers to the scarf Veronica used to wipe the face of Jesus during his journey to Calvary, a cloth
that supposedly preserved his features in the fabric when it was removed from his bloodstained face. Whether
there's any basis to this claim or not, it's certainly a more dramatic reference than the others we've listed on
this page.
If you'd like to check out the names of other branches of your family, visit Ancestry.com.
Pronunciation
The name Mandile has three syllables, as all vowels are pronounced in the Italian language. So the correct
pronunciation is mun-deel-eh.
In Australia, Mandile is mispronounced as man-dl (with the emphasis on the 'man') or man-deel (with
the emphasis on the 'deel'). Both of them lack the musical quality of the original name.