Italian-American naming conventions

[iamthepie]

I live and work in a predominantly Italian-American community, and I've noticed a naming pattern that I was curious about. So I decided to ask the experts! :)

In several families that I know, the older son has a traditional, ethnically neutral name, while the younger son has a distinctly Italian name. Examples - Joseph and Luciano, Michael and Vito, Dominic and Lorenzo, Christopher and Antonio, etc. I'm thinking that the older sons might be named after their dads and the younger sons are named after grandfathers, but I don't have any proof in these specific cases. What I'm finding online about Italian (in Italy) naming traditions doesn't match up with this particular pattern. Does anyone know anything about it?

TIA!

[_Roxanna_]

in my family i think when the 1st generation to be born in america arrived my great-grandparents wanted them to "fit in" so they gave their children very american names, although its easy to see they chose names they were already familiar with. My grandfather was Alfred, his brothers were Louis, Daniel, Joseph. The women were given names that were also very easy to blend in with the masses, Christine, Gloria, Jenny, Annie, although I later found out that these women actually had very italian/french sounding names but they had very american sounding Nick names. With the next generation it seems that the parents picked a name they liked & everyone used it. Example: we have 5 Vincent's all go by Big Vincy or Lil' Vincy, we have several Al's all named after Alfred, and Bobby's and Robbies. It seems this is where the creativity ended for my Italian-American family as for the next 3 generations the same names were recycled constantly. With the exception of my grandmother and the names she picked for her kids. I often joke that I may have gotten my love for names from her. I found lists and lists of names she may have thought she created, most were compound or Double-Barrel names. She used a couple of them, Carolyn, Debranne. In my generation half of us got trendy names for the time period we were born (scott in the 70's and ashley, lindsay in the early & mid 90's) and the other half got throw-back names like myself, named after my great grandmother Anna and my grandmother Christine, my brother another Robert. Between my cousin Scott and I we have chosen the most trendy names thus far for our family, and they all have a trend SavaNNah . HaNNah . CoNNor . KatelyNN . the only one who doesnt have the double n's is our newest addition, Kendall. Still trendy.

So although we arent really in-line with the pattern you've discovered, I think each Italian-American family has its own pattern. Names are passed down along with the recipies and each family has their own little spin on the names, same as the recipies.

[ckevans]

I think it's possible that the first son is named after the father.

But something else that's been going on in the Italian-American community the last decade or so is that "real Italian" names are coming back into style in general. Gianna, for example, has really boomed in use among Italian Americans recently. Perhaps it's just that the younger sons were born during the time when it was becoming more fashionable to use such names.

[KNY]

Hmmmm, I haven't known that practice to be true, at least not for my family. (ETA: But you can't necessarily say that all Italian naming traditions are the same. Like my grandparents are very proud of being Northern Italian. And Sicilians are very proud of being Sicilian. But the two are not the same. So maybe it's cultural to the region of Italy that your little town all came from. Like where I used to live in CT, where my ex was from, half the town had ancestors from the same village in Italy and they all had the same few last names too.)

My grandfather's generation (he's over 80), he had an Italian name Aldo but always went by Al to fit in. And we always thought he named his children John & Linda because they were the #1 American names, to have all-American kids, that being the goal in the 1950's. (Although John is technically for HIS grandfather, Giovanni). Then my dad named his sons American names too, this being 1980, 2001, and 2005.

The only thing is when my dad's wife was pregnant with baby #1, my grandfather sent my dad a list of names and my dad was making fun of some of them to me. He was like "Gino? Come on, we're not in Italy!" and that sort of thing at the ethnic names. But I think my grandfather is at an age now to appreciate his heritage and wish for the Italian names to be passed down. The 2 little boys did get his name as the middle name.

[cinerdy]

My brother is the ONLY grandson not named after his father so I think the first son is pretty much always named for the dad. But I can see how the later generations are becoming more Italian-ized. My DD's mn is Margherita, and I have some little cousins named Chiana, Bianca, Gia etc so it is definitely cool now to have Italian names. Heck if DH had gone for it, DD would have the FN of Margherita so I can see the appeal.

[trueblue]

I agree with what Kalee said, it might be specific to region or family. I have one set of grandparents from the north and one from the south and they are very different. My family has recycled the same names over and over and over. I think it's really strange but we have several 1st cousins with the same name (think My Big Fat Greek Wedding...). But I would say that generally the first boy is named after the father.

Here is a list of my cousins names for examples, the first American born generation had very American names, after that they returned to Italian names: (and everyone has a nickname.."Honest Mike" "Atlantic City Mike" "Fuzz" "Broadway" and everyone has a "y" added for endearment, even my male cousin is called Chrisy.

The colored ones are those that live in Italy, so you can see the difference.

Mike x 5
Jesse x 4
Francesco x2
Gennaro
Maria x 1,00000000000000000000000 (just kidding but it feels like it)
Nick x 4
Francesca
Sabella
Jacinto
Luigi
Mario
Filippo
Domenic x 6
Angellina
Pasquale
Bruno
Gisella
Guessepe
Michaelangela
Liviana
Franco
Angelo
Annachiara
Pierluigi
Sebastiano

[KNY]

Trueblue - I'm curious, with your cousins' names so Italian, how did you end up with a name like Megan? :)

[trueblue]

That is a great question! My Italian cousins hate my name because it's so "final." They can't add a y to the end and they don't like the way Meggie sounds. As for my name... well my mom loved the book The Thorn Birds and named me after the character Meghann "Meggie" Cleary. I was robbed... :banghead:

[KNY]

Oh, I liked that book!

Well, they could always call you Margherita! ( = Margaret, = Megan) ;)

ETA: I missed the first time around that the red names were the ones from Italy. Very cool!!!! Those really do stand out :)

[sunkissed86]

That's interesting... I wonder if it's just a coincidence? I know that a lot of Italian-Americans have "traditional" names because Italian-Americans usually use Biblical names, so Joseph and Michael make lots of sense.. in my family we have mostly Joseph, Anthony, Michael, Mary and Rose. Then DH's family has all Joseph and Daniels. There are so many that it's hard to keep track of who's who sometimes, honestly. :) Then there are some like Antonio, Maria, etc. a few generations back, and then my generation is starting to have babies and name them super Italian names, like my cousin just named her baby Rocco and a second cousin named hers Mia.. although that was after a Maria. :)

(In case you're wondering why DH and I have non-Italian names it's because we both got names completely from our mother's sides of the family, which are English and Scottish and surnames, haha.)

[trueblue]

Thanks Kalee! I really like Margherita, I should push for that! I have never read The Thornbirds but I feel like it's a must do, given the name thing and all.

[iamthepie]

That's interesting... I wonder if it's just a coincidence? I know that a lot of Italian-Americans have "traditional" names because Italian-Americans usually use Biblical names, so Joseph and Michael make lots of sense..

:yes: Joseph and Michael are by far the most common names for boys around here. It's interesting to me (but not unexpected) that most of the boys have New Testament/saint's names rather than the popular Old Testament names. I have yet to meet a Jacob or Joshua in this town.

[cinerdy]

:yes: Joseph and Michael are by far the most common names for boys around here. It's interesting to me (but not unexpected) that most of the boys have New Testament/saint's names rather than the popular Old Testament names. I have yet to meet a Jacob or Joshua in this town.

We have almost no Josephs and no Michaels at all. They are all Frank, Tony and James. And of course then we have Frank James, Little Tony, and all variants like that.

[Nikalyn]

Hmm, good question! I was wondering the same thing. It's strange how it seems each Italian-American family has their own naming traditions.

My maternal grandfather was 1st generation Italian-American born in this country, and he got his dad's first name as his middle name. His dad was Joseph Angelo and his name is Matthew Joseph. Then my uncle, his son is named Matthew Joseph as well. So, they really didn't keep any pattern but tried to include at least a little bit of the father's name. My uncle has one child, a daughter, and they are done so I guess we won't get to see if he would do something similar with a son.

[christinemg]

We didn't go with really Italian names either, although my son Anthony is named after my DH and my FIL and I can't remember how many other Anthonys there are in the family with the same last name. His middle name is Gregory, after my father Gregorio. Marisa was a name that I loved from my Italian book in high school. Dominic (Matt's middle name) is an Italian name that we both loved, although we don't have any relatives with that name. OK, I guess we did go with a few Italian names :lol:

ETA: I've always hated that my name is Christine and not Christina. I like Christina so much better and it was my father's choice, but my mother wanted Christine. I actually almost legally changed it at one point, but I figured why bother for just one letter.