Feedback on these Italian names

[LeeMiller]

So, baby will be half Italian, half British. We live in Italy. Girls' names were easy but we are really struggling to agree on a boy's name. The baby will have a classic English middle name and we've decided on an Italian first name.

It doesn't have to be 'international', very Italian is fine providing it is pronouncable in English, can be shortened if it's long, and doesn't sound completely naff/ridiculous.

We have ruled out a LOT of names (including everything ending in e/a, starting with Gi, family/immediate friends' names, super popular (in Italy) names, names with the 'wrong' regional association etc plus a whole lot more just because DH is super fussy.

I feel like I've lost all perspective and would really appreciate some honest feedback on our current shortlist:

Vittorio (nn Vic/Vito)
Alberto (Albie)
Cosimo (this has regional associations - we live in Tuscany)
Fausto
Emilio
Valentino (too much? Does it sound like a tacky celeb name like Chanel? Love the long form but struggling with diminutives as less keen on Val/Tino... Nino? any other suggestions?)
Marino
Matteo (we are tripping over little boys called Matteos and Mattias here, but would consider it as a last resort if everything else is dreadful!)

Luca?

Feedback on your list:

Vittorio (nn Vic/Vito) - fine, shouid be unproblematic
Alberto (Albie) - OK, but it did make me think if Balsam (ie the shampoo)
Cosimo (this has regional associations - we live in Tuscany) - lovely, and shouidn't be problematic (but it is a JillymCoooer character)
Fausto - I wouidn't, legend of Faustus is well enough known, but no countervailing tradition of using it as a name, so I don't think it quite works.
Emilio - OK
Valentino (too much? Does it sound like a tacky celeb name like Chanel? Love the long form but struggling with diminutives as less keen on Val/Tino... Nino? any other suggestions?) - yes, think it would be a bit much
Marino - not keen (Marina has pretty much died out because it's close to being a homophone for a contraceptive coil)
Matteo (we are tripping over little boys called Matteos and Mattias here, but would consider it as a last resort if everything else is dreadful!) - fine

I love Valentino and from experience it gets shortened to Valé with the accent on the 'e' rather than Tino.
Alternatively what about Dante or Leandro? (These were on my short list)

Vittorio is such a great name. My favourite.

DS has a friend here in the UK called Emilio, it's lovely.
Love Tomaso and Vittorio.

We just had a Hugo born in our family. The Italian side of the family love the name, for them it’s Ugo. It’s got history, it’s northern Italian, it reads well in modern Italy too. It’s around, but not super popular.

Any good to you?

Francesco?

I like Cosimo best, followed (by a fair distance) by Emilio.

Old-man names are cool in England, aren't they cool there too?

Emilio is my favourite. I think it's a name that will grow with him and sound sophisticated too.

I love Albie

Thank you for the useful comments, it hadn't occured to me that some of these names sound like contraception / shampoo / Jilly Cooper characters! Lots to think about.

I think old names are fashionable here too, but there are good old-fashioned (Ivy, Arthur type names) and ones that are a bit much (think Ethel), so it's a case of trying to work out which are which! We can't use Luca, Tommaso, Francesco (plus there are little Francescos EVERYWHERE thanks to the Pope!). @Thunderpunt I love Leandro but I think he'd become a Leo (already 'taken'). Not sure about Dante or Ugo, will have (another) chat with DH. I'm pleased that people like Vittorio though.

I wouldn't be concerned about Jilly Cooper characters WRT the name of a child born in 2018-9, and in another country to boot. She's not, as far as I know, exactly popular reading matter among most teenagers now the way she was in the 80s and 90s, never mind in 15 years time. Any name will belong to some character in something, or some as-yet-unknown famous person.

Is Alberto Balsam still well known? I thought it was rather obscure these days. (More popular in the days Jilly Cooper was too)

Btw, for the Italian questions... When I google names (in Italian)
I often land on yahoo answers or the pregnant part of this forum gravidanza.alfemminile.com/forum/mamme-di-ottobre-2018-ci-siete-fd5688921

(I usually just ask my sister who is sworn to absolute secrecy like I was when it was about her children's names but this might be useful for you?)

Excellent list. I like them all other than Fausto (Faust made a pack with the devil) and Marino.

I like the nicknames Vito, Tino and Nino.

gravidanza.alfemminile.com/forum/all

Sorry, this. I accidentally sent you the link to a thread...

I'm not saying that you haven't already checked it out, btw. Maybe you have? Just thought it might be useful if you have not :)

thanks @MariaMadita! I've been using the 'diffusione' maps on Nomix to see if names pass DH's Tuscan test, but this looks helpful.

I really like Cosimo. Also like Emilio. (It's a nice list as a whole, I don't think you'd go far wrong with any of them, though I can see why you have reservations about Valentino)

Alberto Balsam shampoo is in every supermarket and most Poundshops. Very common make at cheap end of market - there will be a shelf full, whereas Ocado stocks a mere 7 from the range.

I think I might have got the Jilly character wrong - it was Cosmo (a quarter-Italian character). Mentioned more because it has that 'vibe' (whatever that means to you, and the wider English side of the family - the guessing of whose reactions being the whole purpose of the thread?) rather than whether putative future classmates, quite possibly in Italy, will ever have read the books.

Cosimo is my favourite from the list

I agree @pennycarbonara, the Jilly Cooper reference doesn't really bother me, whereas the Mirena coil and merino wool (just occured to me!) are putting me off Marino. The Valentino associations are probably the strongest.

@YogaPants Fausto means fortunate so I think of it as a happy name, but I can see that British people would just think Faust and have less positive connotations.

I like the nicknames Vito and Nino too, also Mino (for cosimo > Cosimino > Mino). Not 100% convinced about Tino (too close to Tina?) but I could live with it and call him Nino myself.

Out of them all I like Emilio best, Alberto but only because of it shortened to Albie. Sorry I hate Valentino... Fair enough for the Italian background but to me it sounds very much like you suggested, a bit "Chanel/Gucci" lol

I knew an Italian family growing up and the boys were Nino and Nicolo (NN Neek) . I always quite liked those names