Where did the Farelli's begin. The history of our family starts in where else, Italy. We were not origanlly Farelli's but Farella's. Many stories came about on how our name got changed but no real clear answer is known. Joseph Farella changed all of his childrens names to Farelli though his last name remained Farella. There was some speculation of a mob family with a similiar name and our grandfather didn't want any his children to get associated with the name. However, the most logical seems to be that when the first child was born they either couldn't read his hand writing or understand the name so it was changed on the birth certificate.