Italian/English names

[chewbacca83]

I'm married to an Italian and we have our first baby due in October. We have a few boys and girls names but would love any more suggestions/opinions. They need to work in both languages i.e. phonetical. Some boys italian names sound like girls names in the UK. I.e. Gabrielle, Andrea

Girls: Vanessa, Francesca, Mary/Maria, Sofia
Boys: Matteo, Massimo (Max), Noah.
Thanks!

Enrico, Elio?

All lovely :)

How about Alessia, Elisa or Luca?

I like Sofia and Matteo best.

A couple I know who needed English/French/Italian names chose Anna, Stella and Marco.

Rosa? Anita?

Unfortunately Elio doesn't go with our last name. And I really don't like Ricky as a nickname and I think Enrico is likely to get shortened to Ricky..I can stop thinking of Bianca in EastEnders....'Rickeeyyyy'! But thanks for the suggestions

Rosa is a potential middle name. I love Anita and we have considered that a lot. Problem is if it got shortened to Annie....which means buttholes in Italian

Very short names like Luca don't seem to go well with our last name with is only four letters. Noah seems to though for some reason, I love the name Noah but it's not technically Italian and also it seems very popular at the moment

I have had a bad experience with an Anna so that names out which is a shame. I do like Stella though.

Giovanna/ Giovanni

I love Flavia or Luca.

All nice!

Vanessa, Francesca and Maria are all so familiar to British people that no-one would find them difficult, and I think a lot of people will have heard of the Italian boys' names anyway because of footballers.

Emelia

Lucia for a girl.

I also love Lucia for a girl, it's such a pretty name. How about Alessandro for a boy?

Girls:
Vanessa - lovely, probably second favourite of the girls names
Francesca - nice
Mary/Maria - gorgeous, this would be my pick. Would lean towards Mary, it's underused.
Sofia - it's nice but would blend into the hordes of Sophias

Boys:
Matteo - adore this name
Massimo (Max) - nice, second best I think
Noah - nope, overdone.

I second Flavia and Luca.
Allegra
Chiara
Gaia
Carina
Alessandra
Gabriella
Bianca (as you mentioned it already )
Antonia
Rosalie

Antonio
Pio - though probably too short
Lorenzo
Riccardo - would probably also run into Ricky nns then
(I am not great at thinking of boys names!)

From your names, my favourites are Francesca, Maria and Massimo. They're all nice, though.

I'm part Italian (pretty small part, though) and some other suggestions based on friends or family or just names I like. Some of the spellings vary but they should be close enough that it wouldn't cause confusion. My cousin Enrico is always called Rico btw!

Girls
Lydia/Lidia
Julia/Giulia
Lina
Nadia

Boys
Lorenzo
Antonio
Roberto

Pia?

Raphael - Rafa/raffi

Unfortunately we can't use Roberto for family politics reasons which is a shame. I know what you mean about Sofia, it's very popular in the UK at the moment and there are so many variations on the spelling. Mary is my grandmother's and Maria is my mother-in-laws mother's name so it will definitely feature either as a first or second name. I like Lucia but it has issues with pronounciation. It's pronounced Luchia I believe.

We do like Raphael actually. Could it be shortened to Ray do you think? That was my grandfather's name

I also love Julia but the difference in spelling would cause issues I think

I love Raphael NN Ray!
Ray was on my shortlist actually but vetoed by DH

I like all the names on your shortlist tbh

How about Leo? I love it but couldn’t use it sadly

DP is Italian and we toyed with Ettore for a while when we knew we had a boy. We opted for something else in the end but I really liked it. Matteo is my favourite (we didn't go for that either though!)

My husband isn't a big Leonardo fan unfortunately. It was one of my faves

Giacomo or Sebastiano.