Hugill and other writers (he wasn't the first) were easily distracted by a desire to identify the "real" Reuben Ranzo. Hugill even spun a non-falsifiable and fanciful yarn about the possibility that the "original" Ranzo was a Sicilian fisherman named Lorenzo.

Well, who knows? And my own feeling is who cares? What possible difference could it make if Ranzo was really "Lorenzo" somebody, whose real life story is nearly as obscure as Homer's?

Sure, maybe there was an inept Lorenzo that his shipmates ridiculed into celebrity. But if so, so what?

All kinds of speculation are easy to come by. Whether "Shana(n)do(re)" originally meant Shenandoah or something else entirely makes me wonder how many angels actually walk like Egyptians on the head of a pin.

(Was Alexander Selkirk the "real" Robinson Crusoe? Or just one of several inspirations? Who was the "real" Mademoiselle from Armentieres? There were many contenders.)

There were so many chantey singers that almost any possible interpretation of anything must have been held by someone - if they even thought about it. The Ranzo of the chantey is imaginary.

J. Grey Newell, M.D. "Among Our Sailors" (N.Y.: Harper 1874):

"When hauling up the foretop-sail yard, after reefing or shaking out the reefs, they sing a song of more pretensions, as follows :

'Lorenzo was no sailor —
(Chorus.) — Renzo, boys, Renzo!
He shipped on board a whaler —
Renzo, boys, Renzo!
He could not do his duty —
Renzo, boys, Renzo!
They took him to the gangway,
And gave him eight and forty —
Renzo, boys, Renzo!
He sailed the Pacific Ocean—
Renzo, boys, Renzo!
Where'er he took a notion —
Renzo, boys, Renzo!
He finally got married,
And then at home he tarried —
Renzo, boys, Renzo!"

As Gibb has reminded us, the essence of a given chantey is in the frame and the tune, not the words.