Pierre - do Italians ever use this as a middle name?

[SweetPea3]

Does anyone know whether Italians use Pierre as a middle name? I know they use Piero or Pier+[another name]? I guess what I'm wondering is whether the Pierre spelling is strictly French....

I'd really appreciate any views!

I know of 1 that is Gian Pierre..... But generally it is Pier Luigi etc

Thanks for this... I just thought of Marco Pierre White as well... Googled and apparently Pierre was given to him by an Italian aunt

I know a Pier-Paolo, bit a a mouthful!

I don't know of any. Tbh no Italians I know actually have middle names, as they're seen as very unusual (plus in Italy you would have to write out all your names in full when signing anything official, unless you put a full stop after each name when registering). Our DS has two and lots of eyebrows were raised. What some people do is put two names together to make one name, but without hyphenation. Eg Pierpaolo (Piero with the o taken off), Gianluca, Mariangela, Mariachiara (DH sister but she's known as Chiara).

In my experience Italians don't often have middle names because they will take on a Saints name at their conformation.

All my relatives (including my son) have a saint's name at birth (ie their given name) - they're not given one at confirmation otherwise they'd have missed out on years of name day presents! My niece did hurriedly have to be given a middle name when she was baptized that was a saint's name as the parents realised that her given name had no saint attached.

Thanks all - I didn't realise that there had been more replies. Food for thought :)