Hi all, we're just starting to think about naming our first child. I'm British and DH is Italian, we live in Italy and are planning to stay here. Our baby will have an Italian surname. I would like a middle name (although it's not common here and should probably be short as child will legally have to include it in signature etc, so it will be used more than middle names usually are in the UK). We want a British element to be included in the name somewhere. My name poses problems here (loads of middle names so too long for forms, it's not spelled phonetically, lots of Hs etc) so we'd try to avoid those by choosing familiar/classic British names that are easy for Italians to pronounce.
We have a rough shortlist of names, both British and Italian, but we can't decide how to combine them. Our choices are:
a) British first name and Italian middle name
b) Italian first name and British middle name
c) 'International' first name pronounced the same(ish) in both countries and British middle name
DH prefers an Italian first name as it's easier for the child, whereas I have a common English name and would have loved something foreign and unusual growing up, so favour a British first name.
I'm curious, people bringing up kids outside your home country, what option did you choose and how has it worked out? If you grew up with an obviously foreign-sounding name, did/do you like it?
(Our current shortlist includes James, Joseph, Jude, Max, Cosimo, Amadeo, Leonardo and Lucy, Rose, Rosamund, Rosalind, Charlotte, Eleonora, Clara, Alida, Livia and Lucia - particularly if you're Italian, what's your perception of those names? )
Sorry that was so long!