Italian first names or Italian personal names are those carried by Italians as well as people of Italian origins in the Italian diaspora. They have a very high diversity that reflects all the events in the country's history.
History of Italian first names
The greatness of the Romans was also to take the best of every civilization with which they came in contact. They imposed their power and laws, but drew on the culture and customs of others. Even to the onomastics of foreigners.
Thus it was that so many names of the peoples who inhabited the Italian territory were Latinized-primarily the Etruscans-and of peoples with whom exchanges of all kinds were frequent, especially the Greeks. Indeed, many names familiar to us are Etruscan, even if not all of them are clear in meaning: Antonio, Camillo, Emilio, Fabio, Fabrizio, Mario, Orazio, Sergio, Tarquinio, Tullio.
From the Greek and Asian repertoire come Alessandro, Dario, Damiano, Eugenio, Filippo, Ilario, Pancrazio, Sebastiano, while with the humanistic rediscovery of the classics have been reused Achille, Agamennone, Aristotele, Cinzio, Ettore, Elena, Enea, Oreste, Ulisse, just to give an example.
Are Romans names such as: Adriano, Augusto, Cornelio, Emiliano, Fausto, Flaminio, Flavio, Fulvio, Giulio and Giuliano, Lucio and Luciano, Manlio, Marco with Marciano and Marcello, Martino and Marzio, Paolo, Pio, Quinto, Attilio, Claudio, Livio, Romolo and Remo.
Italian first names of Christian origin
With Christianity, the typical names of augural devotion were added: Amabile, Amato (loved), Colomba (dove), Fedele (faithful), Felice (happy), Fortunato (lucky), Generoso (generous), Giustino, Liberato (cleared), Renato, Severo and together with these also the devotional greek names: Agnese, Anastasio, Angelo, Calogero, Ciriaco, Cristoforo, Epifanio, Eusebio, Geronimo, Luca, Nicola, Teodoro, Stefano.[1]
Italian first names of Jewish origin
Another stock of names is those of Jewish or otherwise Asian origin, which entered the Italian language through the Latin or Greek of the liturgy and sacred readings: Daniele, Davide, Emanuele, Giacomo, Giovanni, Maria, Matteo e Mattia, Michele, Simone; linked to Jewish communities are Abramo, Geremia, Esaù, Ester, Giosuè, Giuseppe, Isaia, Rebecca, Salomone, Samuele, Sara, Zaccaria.
Italian first names of Barbarian and Germanic origin
Moving on to the Middle Ages, with the Germanic peoples who invaded the peninsula (Ostrogoths, Longobards and Franks), hundreds of names penetrated Italy, many still widespread today, others surviving in surnames.
- From Longobard origin: Adalberto, Aldo, Anselmo, Goffredo, Romualdo
- From Franks origin: Alberto, Guglielmo, Ludovico, Luigi, Carlo, Franco, Rinaldo, Umberto
- From Ostrogoths origin: Alfonso and Alvaro
The names in use by the Germanic peoples were perceived as prestigious (the invaders were few, but they had the power) and therefore were adopted by the indigenous population as well.
As a rule all the names with -aldo (and -audo), -ando, -ardo, -baldo, -berto, -elmo, -lando have typical German origin.
Italian first names originated in the Renaissance
With the rediscovery and revaluation of classical, Latin and Greek texts, a number of personal names that had been, if not entirely forgotten, certainly used marginally in the Early and Middle Middle Ages, re-emerged in the 15th-16th centuries. These are names concerning historical figures or from the epic: Attilio, Claudio, Livio, Achille, Agamennone, Aristotele, Cinzio, Ettore, Elena, Enea, Oreste, Ulisse, Romolo and Remo.
Italian first names from other modern languages
Of course, names of Latin and Greek, Hebrew, Lombard, Franks, and Norman origin did not disappear, far from it. Different is the case of the Arabs who left no onomastic traces in the prenames). Arabs, in fact, did not merge with indigenous peoples on the religious level (and poorly on the social level); their names did not intertwine with Latin or Greek or Germanic ones, nor were there Christian saints with Arabic names.
Because of foreign domination in Italy - Catalan, Castilian, French, Austrian- at first, and then because of increasingly frequent linguistic and cultural exchanges, names borrowed from Spanish, French, German, and, particularly in the 20th century, English, have instead spread into Italy.
Italian first names of ideological origin
Over the past two centuries, some ideological names related to the Risorgimento, irredentism, the Italian wars of conquest in Africa, World War I, socialism, anarchism, anticlericalism, workers' struggles, and fascism have had a limited diffusion. Such names are drawn as much from the lexicon - Ateo (Atheist), Avanti (Forward), Idea and Solidea, Progresso (Progress), Riscatto (Redemption), etc. - as much as from anthroponymy, that is, from the first and last names of people distinguished for their ideas or actions – Azeglio, Badoglio, Battisti, Benso, Bixio, Cafiero, Caserio, Cattaneo, Ferrer, Lenin, Mameli, Marx, Menotti, Oberdan, Ricciotti – and from the toponymy – Adua, Ainzara, Asmara, Bengasi, Gorizia, Libia, Magenta, Mentana, Nizza, Tolmino, Trento, Trieste, Tripoli ecc.
Explore more about Italian first names
- The Italy - Collection Catalog at MyHeritage contains 25 collections with 56,155,932 records, among them the following:
- Andiamo! Finding Your Italian Family webinar at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- Italian Local and Parish Censuses webinar at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- Long Distance Italian Genealogy Research webinar at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- From Venezia to Catania: the Basics of Italian Research webinar at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- Origins of Italian Names
- Sistema Archivistico Nazionale
References
- ↑ Italian Names. The Italian Tutorial