Penna Family History

Cornish: perhaps a hypocoristic form (with the Cornish suffix -ow) of a name in Pen- such as Pentec ‘fair head’ (Cornish pen ‘head’ + tec ‘fine fair’) or a similarly formed Cornish hypocoristic form of the Middle English female personal name Penne, a short form of Pernel (Penn).

Italian (mainly southern): probably a topographic name for someone who lived on a hill or peak or generally in an elevated location penna (from Latin pinnus ‘pointed’), a common element of placenames. Compare La Penna.

Possibly also an American shortened form of Greek Pennas: from the vocabulary word penna ‘quill pen’ + occupational suffix -as, hence a metonymic occupational name for a clerk or scribe.

This is also the Greek feminine form of the surname.