Taliaferro

Taliaferro (/ˈtɒlɪvər/ TOL-i-vər), also spelled Tagliaferro, Talifero, Tellifero, Tolliver, or Toliver,^[1] is a prominent family in the United States Commonwealth of Virginia. The Taliaferros (originally Tagliaferro, Italian pronunciation: [ˌtaʎʎaˈfɛrro], which means "ironcutter" in Italian) are one of the early families who settled in Virginia in the 17th century. They migrated from London, where an ancestor had served as a musician in the court of Queen Elizabeth I. The surname in that line is believed to trace back to Bartholomew Taliaferro, a native of Venice who settled in London and was made a denizen in 1562.^[2]

Arms of Tagliaferro family of Tuscany. Sketch sent from Thomas Jefferson to George Wythe, 1786

The origins of the Taliaferro name were of interest to George Wythe, Virginia colonial lawyer and classical scholar, who had married a Taliaferro. Wythe urged his former student and friend Thomas Jefferson to investigate the name when Jefferson traveled to Italy. Jefferson later reported to Wythe that he had found two families of the name in Tuscany, and that the family was of Italian origin.^[3] Jefferson enclosed his sketch of the coat-of-arms of the Tagliaferro family as reported to him by a friend in Florence, Italy.^[4]

Individuals

It is the surname of the following persons:

• Adam Taliaferro, American college football player severely injured during a game
• Al Taliaferro, American comic strip artist
• Benjamin Taliaferro, United States representative from the State of Georgia
• Charles Taliaferro, American philosopher
• Edith Taliaferro, American actress
• George Taliaferro, American football player
• Hardin E. Taliaferro, American humorist and Baptist preacher
• James Taliaferro, United States Senator from Florida
• John Taliaferro, nineteenth-century politician, lawyer, and librarian from Virginia
• Lawrence Taliaferro, United States frontier agent
• Mabel Taliaferro, American actress
• Ray Taliaferro, American radio host
• Richard Taliaferro, Colonial architect in Williamsburg
• R. Catesby Taliaferro, American philosopher and mathematician
• Walter R. Taliaferro, American aviator
• William Booth Taliaferro, Confederate States of America general
• Kay Toliver, American teacher
• Anthony Tolliver, American basketball player
• Billy Joe Tolliver, American football player
• Charles Tolliver, American musician and composer
• Melba Tolliver, American journalist
• Mose Tolliver, American primitive artist
• Toby Tolliver, a character in 20th-century American traveling theater

It is the middle name of the following persons:

• William Taliaferro Close, doctor from Connecticut and father of actress Glenn Close
• Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, former Democratic lawmaker from Virginia
• Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn, former Democratic lawmaker from Texas
• John Taliaferro Thompson, former United States Army officer best remembered as the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun
• Booker Taliaferro Washington, 20th century African American political leader, educator, orator and author

It is the first name of the following persons:

• Toliver Craig, Jr., a representative in the Kentucky General Assembly
• Toliver Craig, Sr. (first called Taliaferro Craig), an 18th-century American frontiersman and militia officer

Fictitious characters named Taliaferro, Tagliaferro, Taliafero, Toliver, or Tolliver

Given name

• Tolliver Groat, Junior Postman, later Senior Postman and Postal Inspector in Ankh-Morpork, the fictional capital of Discworld
• Tolliver Lang, the stepbrother of the protagonist of The Harper Connelly Mysteries

Surname Tagliaferro

• Roy Tagliaferro, an alias of serial killer Red John, in The Mentalist

Surname Taliaferro

• Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan, a character in Rudyard Kipling's short story "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888)
• Penelope Taliaferro Russell, secretary to John Joseph Bonforte in Robert A. Heinlein's Double Star (1956)
• Roderick Taliaferro, the title character in George Cram Cook's first novel, Roderick Taliaferro: A Story of Maximilian's Empire (1903), with illustrations by Seymour M. Stone

Surname Tolliver

• Ben Tolliver, a recurring character in the Gunsmoke radio and television series and the protagonist of the episode, "Ben Tolliver's Stud" (ep. 206×11 on television and ep. 166(46) on radio)
• Crane Tolliver, a character played by Wiley Harker on the ABC soap opera General Hospital
• Cy Tolliver, a character played by Powers Boothe on HBO's Deadwood TV series
• Jeffrey Tolliver, a recurring character in crime writer Karin Slaughter's Grant County series
• June Tolliver, the "girl" in John Fox, Jr.'s romance/western novel, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1908)
• Kenny "Captain Peacock" Tolliver, a character in Miz Scarlet and the Vanishing Visitor (A Scarlet Wilson Mystery, #2), published in September 2013 on Smashwords by Sara M. Barton
• Michael Tolliver, a gardener, who is a recurring character in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series
• Mister Tolliver, a Genesis (comics) character
• Steven Tolliver, owner of a sailing ship line in Cecil B. DeMille's film Reap the Wild Wind (1942)

Places

The following places are named Taliaferro:

• Camp Taliaferro, Texas, United States, named for Walter R. Taliaferro
• Taliaferro County, Georgia, United States, named for Benjamin Taliaferro
• T. C. Taliaferro House, Florida, United States
• Taliaferro Hall, College of William and Mary, Virginia, United States
• Taliaferro Hall, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States

Others

Tolliver can also refer to:

• Taliaferro (apple), an apple cultivar grown by Thomas Jefferson at Monticello

See also

• First Families of Virginia

Notes

This page or section lists people with the surname Taliaferro. If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name(s) to the link.