Italian Baby Names

"What were they thinking?" department: This monument to those fallen in WWI in the Lake Como town of Gravedona shows someone whose parents named him "Troppotardi" - "too late".

Names I Happen to Like

June 14, 2006

Some less common but still current Italian baby names that I happen to like:

• Alessandra [ah-less-SAHN-dra]
• Corrado [cor-RAH-do] - I've only ever seen this on an older (now dead, in fact) television personality, but have always liked it. Equivalent to the English Conrad.
• Dario [DAH-ree-oh] From the old Persian Darius, the name of several kings.
• Fausta, Fausto [FOW-sta, FOW-sto] The first syllable rhymes with "cow". An old Roman name meaning happy and/or lucky.
• Fiamma [FYAHM-mah], or more commonly Fiametta [fyahm-MET-ta] - flame, little flame
• Gaia [GUY-ah] - an Old Roman goddess, I think.
• Livia [LIV-ee-ah] - Roman
• Massimo [MAHSS-ih-mo] - Old Roman Maximus, aka Max. Variants include Massimino (little Massimo) and Massimiliano.
• Tosca [TOSS-ka]

See also: some old-fashioned Italian names

What are some of your favorite Italian names?

Italian Law and Naming Your Baby

May 28, 2004

An article in Il Corriere della Sera points out that Italian law aims to prevent children being given "ridiculous, shameful, or embarrassing" names by their parents.

The official whose job it is to decide these things (the Public Prosecutor of the Commune where the birth is registered) sometimes has to sort out perplexing problems, such as whether to allow an Italian child to be given an American name taken from a soap opera. Good question. The other day I heard a mother in Lecco calling her small daughter Karen. She pronounced it CAHR-en - not ugly, but strange-sounding to both English and Italian speakers.

The article also mentions that it is illegal to give masculine names to females and vice-versa, which has stymied some parents who wanted to name their daughters Andrea. Pronounced an-DRAY-uh in Italian, it's a masculine name, the equivalent of Andrew. In English it's pronounced ANN-dree-uh, and is feminine.

An Italian colleague who moved to California discovered just how much trouble this can cause. He made a health insurance claim for a decidedly male complaint. When the check didn't arrive, he called the insurance company to inquire. "This is obviously a fraudulent claim," they told him nastily. "How can someone named ANN-drea have a prostate problem?"

Unusual Italian Baby Names

photo taken in Mantova

Dino [DEEN-oh] is a common nickname for a number of names. This guy must have a sense of humor: "Dino Nosari" sounds like dinosauri - dinosaurs.

photo taken in Mantova

I'd never heard the name Modestino [mod-ess-TEEN-oh] (literally "little modest one"), but it's rather sweet, especially in combination with his surname, Lieto [lee-AY-toh] - Happy.

photo taken in Lecco

More names from death announcements.

"Maria Bambina" I suppose refers to the childhood of the Virgin Mary, but seems an odd choice of name. No wonder she was nicknamed Mariuccia [mahr-ee-OOCH-ah] ("cute little Mary"). Then she married into the Rats (Ratti).

Nives I've heard before, but would have thought it a Spanish name.

Upper left: somebody, widow of Horses

Gustavo is an old-fashioned name, Jorio I've never seen before [YOR-ee-oh], Salvatore [sahl-vah-TORE-ay] is very southern Italian, and... Colombina [col-om-BEAN-uh] - Little dove

Heavens, what a name! Altavilla (high villa) Nobili (nobles). At least he gave his kids fairly normal names (Annarita and Franco).

Marshall reminded me of a very funny and supposedly true case in Italy. It requires some explanation: When a woman marries, she is formally known as "Maidenname Firstname in Husband's Surname," I guess "in" signifies that she has married into the husband's family (though I've only seen this construction used in death announcements). So there was a lady with the surname Milolava ("I'll wash it") whose parents rather cruelly named her Domenica (Sunday). She married a Signor Piazza, so she became "Sunday I'll wash it in the piazza." What "it" may signify is up to your imagination.

Really, some parents ought to be shot for how they name their kids. Years ago, in Washington, I had a data entry temp job for an insurance company. One of the records I entered was for a woman named Candy Caine. Evidently her parents wanted her to grow up to be a Playboy Bunny.

Jan 19, 2004

Ivo wrote me about his friends, interestingly surnamed "Della Bella" (of the beauty), who have relatives with the unhappy surname "Della Morte" (of death). So what did these sadistic parents name their child? Angelo. 

And another in the series: "What were your parents thinking?!?"

In the Italian online white pages, you can do a reverse lookup (when you know the number, get the name). Some time ago, the following Internet meme was circulating: go to the white pages and look up a certain number. The resulting name, presumably someone's legal name, was Bocchino Generoso (Bocchino being the surname - names are listed surname first). Bocchino is slang for fellatio, Generoso... well, you can guess. Unless this is the stage name of a gay porn artist, this guy must hate his parents. Interestingly, when I went back to check a few weeks later, the number was no longer listed.

unusual Italian surnames

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