Valachi disclosed that the Mafia was called Cosa Nostra ("our thing" or "this thing of ours" in Italian) among the members of the organization and that the term "Mafia" was an outsider term.Their Thing, Time, 16 August 1963 At the time, Cosa Nostra was understood as a proper name, fostered by the FBI and disseminated by the media. The designation gained wide popularity and almost replaced the term Mafia. (in Italy, the article la precedes the general "mafia" term but is not used before "Cosa Nostra").The term was often prefixed with “La” (La Cosa Nostra), in the media and even in the FBI, but this is inconsistent with the Italian language as well as Valachi’s testimony.
