Heritage: Bellel Name Derivation

From the History of Ioannina as mentioned in the previous post. The author is Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos: "While the indigenous Jews of Greece were all Romaniotes, from the 14th century on other Jews would start to enter Greece soil. Jews would come from German lands, primarily Hungary, fleeing persecutions. Other Jews would come from the south of France and Italy, also fleeing persecutions. They would establish their own synagogues and separate communities. In 1492, with the massive influx of Spanish speaking Sephardic Jews into lands of the Ottoman Empire, of which Greece was then a part, the composition of Greek Jewry would change. Where, in most communities, due both to their large numbers and more sophisticated culture, the Sephardim, within a few generations, would absorb other Jews, Romaniote, Italian, French and Ashkenazi into their culture, this did not take place in the Jewish Community of Ioannina. In fact, the reverse happened: the Sephardim were absorbed into the Romaniote culture and the only signs we have of their presence is in certain surnames that are of definite Spanish origin.........Names of obvious Italian origin survive to today: Vita (Italian equivalent of Haim-life), Vidas (a variation on Vita), Dostis [original meaning unknown], Pitsirilo and Kantos [song from the Italian “cantare”], a name given to someone who was a hazan. An interesting change that took place in Greece was with the name “Bellelis” from the Italian “Bella” for beautiful. Since the letter that looks like the Latin “B”, in Greek, the “beta” is actually pronounced like the letter “v”, the name became “Velleli” but those Jews who immigrated to Israel or the United States kept the Italian pronunciation of Belleli."