“The toponym Paterno is widespread in Tuscany, I counted about fifteen localities in the centre of the region, the term dates back to the early Middle Ages and also to the Roman Age; it derives from the Latin
‘paternus’ and indicates a property inherited from the father.
It is still used to mean paternal house, paternal estate, paternal teaching. This is because of the concept of the father as the head of the family, who gave his surname to his children, who took part in public life, who studied, who when he walked down the street was always a few steps ahead of his spouse, etc.
Things of other times fortunately, but history is history.
So paternal stands for property handed down from father to son, in short the father-owner in the sense of father-owner while he is alive and afterwards he retains the adjective paternal as of the father.”