My top name for a hypothetical son is
Donato. It honours my beloved grandfather and fits most of my other criteria for a name (uncommon but not out-there, recognizably Italian but not too hard to pronounce in other languages).
WDYT of
Donatella, the female version, which would serve the same honouring purposes (my grandma actually suggested it to my mum, who didn't really like it and thought it didn't work with my surname, which has D's and L's)? I find that -ella names are bit too frilly, but
Donatella has its charm. I've been reading "A Song of Ice and Fire" and came across a minor character named
Donella. I thought it would make a cute nickname/variant for
Donatella.
"We have to live without sympathy, don't we? That's impossible of course. We act it to one another, all this hardness; but we aren't like that really, I mean...one can't be out in the cold all the time; one has to come in from the cold...d'you see what I mean?”
John LeCarré