sephardic names

["Paola Taranta" <http://www.ca.com/~ptaranta>]

Dear Robert:
My mothers family are italian jews, but were already in italy before jews
were expelled from spain and came to italy. So my family is refered to as
italiote jews not sephardic jews. I have never heard of the name bigas, but
I do not know much about sephardic names, but since the name was changed, I
would first try to confirm the original spelling...
Take care,
Paola