Extract from "List of Maltese Surnames from 1419 and 1480" by Godfrey Wettinger.

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"Linguistics will probably never be able to determine the origin of names such as Viniciano, which could just as well linguistically derive from Vinecia (nowadays Vnezja, between Rabat and Mosta) as of Venezia, Venice (while, in the militia lists, slightly later than 1419, four fifths of the names are identical to those recorded in 1419, one does not find Jacobinu Vinicianu in Rabat, but in it's place, Jacobinu de Savoye. If the two names actually identify the same individual, then one can conclude that a search on Vinicianu simply returns the immediate origin of the person concerned, that is to say, Venice and not Vnezja).

Then could Pisani, written sometimes as Pissan, also easily derive from the name of Hal Pessa close to Mosta (quoted in the militia lists under the name of Bise and coupled with Dimag) rather than the Italian city of Pisa? In fact, the majority of Pisani in 1419 lived just four or five kilometers from Bise (One does not suggest for one moment that all, or even some of the Pisani families of Sicily and Italy had some relation, even distant, with Hal Pessa, but rather that the Maltese Pisani name could have a separate origin to that of its Italian counterpart, in the same way that the European culture and influence even more deeply infiltrated the structure of the Semitic origin of Maltese life). Lukisi is most probably an Italian form of Luuqi, an inhabitant of Luqa, and does not have absolutely anything to do with Lucca - as the presence of both Luuqi and Lukisi (see Maltisi) on these lists suggests. As the two forms are found on the lists in the same villages, the choice of the spelling could have been part of the initiative of the scribe which drew up the role. The relationship with any foreigner called by such names was probably not the last of the factors which helped to ensure their survival. Sometimes a Latin suffix was grafted on the name, for example Cusburella coming from Cosbor (see Falchellu, that is to say Falchellu, coming from the name Falca). "