In two days, I experienced two cur-ious coincidences.

In the September 29 issue of the Times of Malta, I saw a feature on Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy magazine in 1953. Later, I had a discussion with a friend of mine on the two Pace painters of the second half of the 18th century, qualified in 1820 as “les duex Pace excellent dans le portrait”. In the evening, I started researching the marriage registers of Valletta to try and establish whether and when they were married.

By sheer coincidence, I came across the surname Efner, very similar to Hefner, especially because, in Malta, centuries ago the letter ‘h’ was, at times, dropped when the surname started with a vowel. Thus, Hebejer was the same as Ebejer and Hallul was the same as Ellul. Even Habela became Abela; I have a document of 1647 in which the famous historian Gian Francesco Abela signed himself Habela.

It was on May 10, 1776, that a marriage was celebrated at the church of Porto Salvo between Gaetano Efner, son of Nicholas and Anna, and Anna Fournier, daughter of George and Luigia. Both surnames do not sound Maltese although we had the Counts Fournier.

As if that were not enough, on September 30, an article on the Catalan referendum was signed by Spanish Ambassador José Pons. Continuing my research in the afternoon I landed upon the marriage of Giulio Pons, son of the late Gio Batta and Angela with Maria Leizer (probably Hyzler) of the late John and Bartolomea. This was celebrated at Porto Salvo on January 16, 1785. His father married Angela Cauchi on  February 7, 1749.

Unlike Efner, the surname Pons is still extant in Malta, although uncommon.