Made man
fully initiated member of the Mafia
In the Sicilian and American Mafia, a made man is a fully initiated member of the Mafia. To become eligible to be "made", an associate must fulfill several family-specific requirements. These range from being Italian (or specifically from Sicily) to being of general Italian descent and sponsored by an existing made man. An inductee will be required to take the oath of omertà, the Mafia code of silence and code of honor. After the induction ceremony, the associate becomes a "made man" and holds the rank of soldier (Italian: soldato) in the Mafia hierarchy. Made men are the only ones who can rise through the ranks of the Mafia, from soldier to caporegime, consigliere, underboss, and boss.
Other common names for members include man of honor (Italian: uomo d'onore), man of respect (Italian: uomo di rispetto), one of us (Italian: uno di noi), friend of ours (Italian: amico nostro), good fella, and wiseguy, although the last two terms can also apply to non-initiated Mafia associates who work closely with the Mafia, rather than just official "made men". Earning or making one's "bones" or "button" or becoming a "button man" for the Mafia is usually synonymous with becoming a "made man".
Other street terms for being initiated into the Mafia include being "straightened out" or "baptized", and earning one's "badge". "Opening the books" and "closing the books" are phrases used in the Mafia to indicate, respectively, that a family is ready or unwilling/unable to accept new members.
“Made man” enters the record as fully initiated member of the Mafia. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Made, fully and initiated can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6726783. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Made man” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.