NAMES: or rather Families:
The Family names of Merucci, Muscedere and Puzzuoli are single village names.
That means that ancestorially everyone of those names came from just one village.
For Muscedere that village in Fontechiari
Single village names are not rare in southern
Each village developed its own language, and when family names were necessary they developed differently in each village. I read a very nice paper by Glen Lamb on the subject, and its usefulness in Italian research. The paper was publish in The Central Florida Genealogical Society quarterly, Buried Treasures
Anyway, as I work through the village of Fontechiari and then the others I will post the family name material here, too.
There is a Muscedere message board (URL) http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=board&r=rw&p=surnames.muscedere
Also a discussion of sources of information about immigrants