• Find out why women in Italy keep their “maiden” names
• Discover more about name choices and name changes in Italy
• Gain insight into middle names
• Get a taste of how Italian couples approach surnames
• Understand why in Italy punctuation really matters!

A rose by any other name

I have always hated my first name, positively loathed it. Growing up in the 80s, all I wanted to be was a Melissa, a Jennifer, or a Lisa (like my sister). I wanted to be able to buy personalized useless trinkets and souvenirs with my name on them like everybody else could. While I was, and still am, a very proud Italian American, at such a tender age my overly ethnic name really stood out and was an endless source of entertainment and embarrassing nicknames throughout elementary school. Some of my readers might recall the grapefruit soft drink Fresca or the loveable Muppet, Fozzie Bear. I have blocked the others out.

I was named by my father who was inspired by the 19th century novel, Fosca, written by Iginio Ugo Tarchetti. The book was made into a well received and renowned 1981 film, La Passione d’Amore, directed by the great auteur, Ettore Scola. It was also transformed into a Tony Award-winning Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical, Passion.

None of the above caused even the slightest uptick in the name’s popularity.

While truly rare in the US, you might think it’s easier to find my name in Italy. It is not. I find it difficult to put into words the joy I felt upon spotting it on the back cover of the since lost iconic Diabolik comic book where, for the first time in my life, I read my name intentionally printed on something created for popular consumption. The little Italy souvenir leather pocketbook in the above photo montage was a gift to me from a friend of my mother’s. It was personalized on the spot in Italy. You wouldn’t have found anything with my name on it in 1970s Italy and you won’t today.

I still can’t help but browse souvenir stands to see if I might find something with my name on it. I always come up dry.

I have met only two other Fosca’s in my life, one was an older nonna here in Florence, the other a little girl whose mom I chatted up after I turned around thinking she was calling me until I realized she was trying to get her daughter’s attention, not mine. I was in Venice. There, and in the Veneto in general, it is a touch less obscure but still rather antiquated.

The gorgeous facade of the Byzantine/Romanesque Church of Santa Fosca, Island of Torcello, Venice

So, lest you think it’s easier here than in the US, I can assure you it is not. People also always call me Tosca, which is actually the last name, not the first, of Puccini’s diva whose first name is Floria (I’ve yet to meet anyone by that name). Tosca is, of course, also a first name with Latin roots and means Tuscan woman. It is also not that common but still more familiar to most than my name.

Fosca is also pronounced differently in Italian and in English. Here in Italy it is foe-ska, in English fah-ska. Long story short, it is always a nightmare.

This notwithstanding, when it came time to baptize my business, the only thing that really stuck was Ask Fosca and I have to admit that it felt good to embrace my name finally and put a positive spin on it.

Maiden names and the fatal apostrophe

_{According to a map I found on Cognomix, there are a mere 102 people in Italy with my last name, the majority reside in Campania, birthplace of my grandfather, Dr. Pellegrino D’Acierno, a physician and poet.}

It certainly doesn’t help that my last name is also a real mouthful, impossible to pronounce, even for Italians, save those from the Campania region. It starts with two uppercase letters, divided by a fatal apostrophe, followed by a string of vowels and a couple of strategically placed consonants that break it up a little so you can breathe. Even though my last name, and the damn apostrophe, complicate my daily life in so many ways, I never once considered changing it, it never even crossed my mind.

Fun Italian culture fact: Italian women do not take their husband’s name as we do with more regularity in the U.S and in other English-speaking countries when we marry. Why is that?

I have always been told by my Italian friends that it was for bureaucratic reasons (see below) but I wanted to dig deeper. According to the Italian Civil Code, when a woman marries she keeps her last name and has the option of adding her husband’s. The only women I know here in Italy who took their husband’s name upon marriage are from the US.

Changing one’s name here in Italy is not easy at all. It is nothing like in the States, it is actually very complicated, which is why so few do it, and there has to be a strong motivating factor.

Hyphenated names don’t exist, although double last names do, and they are increasingly on the rise. Once associated with nobility or aristocracy, many Italian couples now opt to give their children both last names and it is becoming more common to give the mother’s last name only.

Middle names and the importance of the comma

As if all this weren’t enough, I also have a middle name, Simone, which just happens to be a man’s name here in Italy (thank you again dad). The story goes that I was named after Simone de Beauvoir, not exactly a household name, but now that Simone Biles has made Simone famous all over the world, I was hoping the confusion would clear, but alas it has not. I frequently receive calls from people looking for Signor Simone and have to explain at length that there is no Signor Simone. When I have gone and go to official offices for any kind of bureaucratic reason involving my name, people look at me, around me, befuddled, and I repeat the same words, yet again, it’s French, it’s my middle name, like Simone de Beauvoir, yes, Simone Biles, esatto, exactly.

A small street in Venice paying homage to my patron saint

Notwithstanding my troubles with my own middle name here in Italy, I was insistent upon giving my daughter a middle name in honor of my maternal grandmother. You can bet that she thanks me every time she is referred to as Veronica and believe me, it happens a lot. I have been told over the years that it has something to do with the way you register the names on the birth certificate, commas, and the order of the names. I feel very confident that we did everything right but then again we filled out the information while I was still in a morphine-induced post c-section stupor. I am certain I got the order correct, perhaps the problem was a comma or lack thereof, much like the apostrophe in my last name, punctuation marks dotting my life with snags.