What important surname dictionary is there in your country?

[rothaer]

As for the thread's topic I'm not aware of dictionaries on Brazilian surnames, maybe it's a new world thing. What I do when I search for surnames is to research their history in the area they're found, where they came from and when and then look for surname dictionaries of the country of origin, e.g. Portugal, Germany, Italy...

Yes, that's absolutely the reasonable approach. A surname dictionary of the USA would also be somewhat weird. But as for countries with essentially just one European influential ethnicity like Mexico or Cuba such a dictionary could make sense (no idea whether there are Native American-related surnames in those countries).

[Tacitus]

I only know of ones written about southern Italian surnames by - incidentally - a German linguist named Gerhard Rohlfs:

-Dizionario dei Cognomi e Soprannomi in Calabria, Longo, Ravenna, 1982
-Dizionario storico dei cognomi della Lucania, Longo, Ravenna, 1985
-Dizionario storico dei cognomi nella Sicilia orientale, lessici siciliani 1, Palermo, Centro di Studi filologici e linguistici siciliani, 1984.

I wouldn't call these "important" in the general sense since it's a rather niche topic, but important from a linguistic and cultural preservation perspective.

Also, I'm sure there are other surname dictionaries for other parts of Italy but I'm not aware of them.

[rothaer]

I wonder if my surname is in one of those books since it’s a very rare one

I checked in all dictionaries (incl. Brechenmacher) and it's not contained.

[Katarzyna]

I checked in all dictionaries (incl. Brechenmacher) and it's not contained.

That’s probably hard to find since my surname is of Baltic (Old Prussian) origin

[rothaer]

I can add:

- Heintze, Albert, Cascorbi, Paul, Die deutschen Familiennamen, 7th and latest edition, 1933, 536 pp.