#fatty/baldy/bignose/blondie/chatterbox etc

[renaissancefailmarriage]

random name thoughts+headcanons

"françois bonnefoy" is something that he came up with when he was the nation equivalent of 10-12, because it really sounds more like a medievalbrained Cool Title than a real name.....hello i am a frenchman of the good faith. d'accord jeunehomme! people might have already been calling him something like The Frank or the frankish child (in their various dialects) so he really just....took this to the logical conclusion. (side note: i like the idea of his roman cognomen having been flavius/flaviulus, "yellow" for his hair)

"veneziano" is pretty self-explanatory, just a place-of-origin name, in fact iirc there were some people historically who having no last name, just used this one, like the painter bartolomeo veneziano. "feliciano" is apparently not a real italian name(?correct me if this is wrong?) but could have come through any number of vulgar latin takes on "felix" ("happy") i'm very attached to feliciano as a name of his even though its linguistically questionable, because i think it makes so much sense for this name to have stuck with him...sometimes it's happily accurate and sometimes its darkly ironic.

"romano" is another one that probably rose from a nickname given to him by others. i'm not sure if the italybros ever even met their "father" and romano's primary childhood memories would probably be of east rome/byzantium (who imo is a separate character from rome) and an aging mama graecia, if she's still around. (southern italy had been greek-influenced for awhile and was controlled by east rome for a time after the fall of west rome) but these older nations would have known who this new nation-child is, and perhaps called him romulus ("little roman" basically) in remembrance of his father.

"antonio" is a pretty obvious descendent of "antonius" or "antoninus" in latin. i hc antonio to be one of the characters who remembers rome the best, so it makes sense his name would be relatively unchanged. ive toyed with the idea that "fernandez" is from one of his kings (there were a LOT of iberian kings called fernando) but its just as likely thats a story he tells to justify the name after picking it up randomly.

for my florence OC i was considering something like simonetta or clarice after famous florentine women, but eventually i was like....why fight it. her name is fiora/flora, depending on inconsistent medieval spelling. fiorella if she's being babied or teased. i think it would have grown naturally out of the name of her city, with people calling her "the florentine girl" or "the little florentine" before it slowly became less of a title and more of a name.

imo rome is lucius (taken from @absolvtely-barbaric who is so so smart) but he could have any number of cognomen (in roman naming conventions, thats the name you're more likely to be identified by) from the ever popular romulus (little roman. little rome man. little guy from rome. lmao) to marius (for mars, his patron god/probably dad) to my favorite, crispinus ("curly-top", basically, which is funny and also connects him to the italies with their special curls)