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JULY/AUGUST 2004
English Versions of
Italian First Names
Submitted by Vince Pardo
The other evening I got into a discussion with a friend
about some of our Americanized first names. We discussed
how his name (Tommy) wasn’t an Italian name. Did his
parents just like the name or was it an Americanization of a
given name in his family. He mentioned that although there
weren’t any similar names in his family, Tomasso is the
Italian version of Thomas. I mentioned that I had a great
uncle named Gaetano, but we called him Tom. Yet,
Gaetano can also be Guy. My name was Americanized to
Vincent instead of Vincenzo. My father’s name was
Vincenzo, but even my grandmother called him Jimmy. I
always likened it to people named Robert, being called
Bob. What’s the explanation I’m not sure, but I became
curious and found a few websites that translate Italian first
names into English. Some translation examples are:
Calogero = Charles
Giuseppe = Joseph
Dominica = Dora
Enrico = Henry
Giacomo = Jack
Salvatore = Sam
You can check out other names at these sites:
Italian Given Names and their English Equivalents
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pointe/8783/
givename.html
Italian Names-Italiansrus
http://www.italiansrus.com/resources/names.htm
Italian Names and the History of Names
http://www.anzwers.org/free/italiangen/italynames.html
First Name Translator
http://www.daddezio.com/genealogy/italian/names.html
“Fontana del Tritone”
Rome, Italy
Welcome New Members
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