Italian / classical boys' names

[aromanholiday]

Currently living in Italy but likely to move back to the UK in a couple of years time. DP and I have no Italian heritage, but like the idea of a name (probably a middle name, but possibly a first name if we like it enough) for DS which links to the country he will be born in.

I'm not keen on very obviously Italian names, as they sound a bit strange with our English-sounding surname. So thinking of either: an Italian name which also works well in English; a classical / Roman name; or a place name type name, as we have a bit of a tradition of this in our family (examples for girls would be Florence or Siena, but can't think of any for boys).

A few names we've considered already:

Leo / Leone / Leonardo etc
Raphael
Orlando
Cassius
Atticus

Luca would work well in theory, but not so keen for some inexplicable reason.

Would love some more suggestions!

I am English, DP is Italian and DS is called Raphael. We get lots of people commenting on what a lovely name it is. I also really love one of your other choices, Leo/Leonardo.

If we have a second DS we will probably name him Matteo, but I think it's quite an obviously Italian name...

I will try and think of some others!

We know a Rocco, Italian mum, English dad, living in England. I quite like Leo too.

What about Roman. I know a little boy with this name and it really suits him.

Carlos
Nico
Enrico
Emilio
Roman
Enzo
Claudio
Francesco
Antonio
Marco
Stefano

What about Orvieto? I always thought it would make a good boy's name

Thanks for the suggestions. Quite like Rocco, but don't want people to thinking I'm copying Madonna. And also like Roman, but would be too cheesy as we live in Rome!

Nico is nice, but just feels a bit incomplete to me as a full name (and not so keen on Nicholas). Francesco, Enzo and Marco also OK, but nothing leaping out at me yet [hard to please emoticon] .

Florian
Lorenzo (larry)
Vincenzo (vince or vinny)
Giacomo (jack)
Alessandro (Alex or sandro)
Filipo
Paolo
Gianni
Diego
Fabio (autocorrects to fanjo)
Sylvio (lol)
Valentino (love this)
Stefano
Massimo
Nino
Marco
Ludovico
Vito (I loved Vita for dd but wasn't allowed)

Those are all probably too traditional, now that I look at it. What about Bari? People will you're welsh patriots.

*think

My friend's DS is Gianluca. Nice name.

We looked into this as we have a southern European surname. Eventually ruled it out as we have no link to Italy but our options were:

Bruno
Gianluca
Luigi

We nearly, nearly went for Luigi and in many ways wish we we had but we just thought it would cause hassle in "home-counties-land".

Milan?
It's a place name and a boys name (although in eastern Europe rather than Italy).
The name is ususally pronounced 'Mee-lan' rather than 'Mil-aan'.

in Italy, Ennglish names are trendy, we have cousins called Angela and Julia, where I think Angelina and Guiliana is much nicer.

My 2 have Italian names, neither mentioned above , but we have Italian surname so they work ok.

What about fairly "classic" but currently less used names like:

Edoardo
Pietro
Gabriele
Alessandro
Vittorio
Riccardo
Sebastiano
Alessio
Athos
Alberto
Claudio
Ottaviano
?

Mattea - the italian for matthew

Roberto
Domenico
Renato
Remo

I know lots of British/Italian Erics as well.

Oo I like Raphael out of your list.

Love Raphael and Cassius.

Niccolo would be the full version of Nico - as in Machiavelli, but don't let that put you off!

Paolo
Rigo

Giacomo

Is Giacomo the name of that company that makes clothes for well upholstered men?

Thanks everyone

I think most of these would be fine as a middle name, but most just sound too Italian for our surname to work as first names. I guess I'm looking for something which has an association with Italy rather than an out and out Italian name.

Quite like Bruno as a possible first name. LIke Minervaitalica's list for potential middle names, but for first names probably prefer the English equivalent of lots of these (eg Sebastian, Laurence, Gabriel). Athos is interesting; hadn't come across that before.

Bari certainly ticks the place name box, but just not sure that "Barry" is due a comeback yet

Good to know the auto-correct for Fabio (which I otherwise rather like as a middle name!).

Cosmo? Wondering about it for ours as goes well with second name and was DH's nickname at uni plus his dad apparently liked it but didn't have the guts! Quite nice when.you look it up and came into Scotland in 18thC.

Natal?

some shakespearian names?
Balthasar
Horatio
Hortensio
Caesar

Or roman mythology maybe?
victor
pax?