Italian Name - Given Names

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.