Given Names
Many Italian male given names end in -o but can also end in -e (for example Achille, Aimone, Alceste, Alcide, Amilcare, Amintore, Annibale, Aristotele, Astorre, Baldassare, Beppe, Carmine, Cesare, Clemente, Daniele, Dante, Davide(David), Emanuele, Ercole, Ettore, Felice, Gabriele, Gaspare, Gastone, Gentile, Giosuè, Giuseppe, Leone, Melchiorre, Michele, Oddone, Ottone, Pasquale, Raffaele, Salomone, Salvatore, Samuele, Scipione, Simone, Ulisse, Vitale, Vittore), in -i (for example Dionigi, Gianni, Giovanni, Luigi, Nanni, Neri, Ranieri) and in -a (for example Andrea, Battista, Elia, Enea, Evangelista, Luca, Mattia or Nicola). Some names, usually of foreign origin, end with a consonant, such as Christian/Cristian, Igor, Ivan, Loris, Oscar, and Walter/Valter.
Female names end in -a but can also end in -e, as is the case with Adelaide, Adele, Agnese, Alice, Beatrice, Berenice, Geltrude, Irene, Matilde and Rachele for example, in -i (for example Noemi), or even with a consonant (e.g. Nives, Ester).
A few names end with an accented vowel, for instance Niccolò and Giosuè.
Almost every base name can have a diminutive form ending with -ino/-ina or -etto/etta as in Paolino/Paoletto and Paolina/Paoletta from Paolo and Paola, -ello/-ella, as in Donatello/Donatella from Donato and Donata, or -uccio/-uccia, as in Guiduccio from Guido. The forms -uzzo/-uzza, as in Santuzza from Santa, are typical of Sicilian language.
The most common names are:
- For males: Giuseppe, Antonio, Giovanni, Francesco, Mario, Luigi.
- For females: Maria, Anna, Rosa, Giuseppina, Angela, Giovanna.
Since the ancient Romans had a very limited stock of given names (praenomina), very few modern Italian given names (nomi) are derived directly from the classical ones. A rare example would be Marco (from Marcus). Some nomi were taken from classical clan names (nomina)—for their meanings or because they are euphonic, not necessarily because the nameholder is the descendant of the clan, such as Emilio/Emilia (from Aemilius), Valerio/Valeria (from Valerius), Claudio/Claudia (from Claudius), Orazio (from Horatius), and Fabio (from the cognomen Fabius), Flavio/Flavia (from Flavius).
Some given names have the prefix "Gian-" such as Gianluca and Gianfranco where "Gian" is short for Giovanni. Another prefix is "Pier-" (short for Pietro), as in Pierpaolo, Pierangelo, Pierantonio and so on.
Italian unisex names are very rare (a few examples are Celeste and Andrea), but the feminine name Maria is common as a masculine second name, as in Gianmaria, Carlo Maria, Anton Maria, etc.
Read more about this topic: Italian Name
Famous quotes containing the word names:
“If goodness were only a theory, it were a pity it should be lost to the world. There are a number of things, the idea of which is a clear gain to the mind. Let people, for instance, rail at friendship, genius, freedom, as long as they will—the very names of these despised qualities are better than anything else that could be substituted for them, and embalm even the most envenomed satire against them.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“We rarely quote nowadays to appeal to authority ... though we quote sometimes to display our sapience and erudition. Some authors we quote against. Some we quote not at all, offering them our scrupulous avoidance, and so make them part of our “white mythology.” Other authors we constantly invoke, chanting their names in cerebral rituals of propitiation or ancestor worship.”
—Ihab Hassan (b. 1925)