My 2nd great-grandfather, Giovanni Orsi (1833-1908), gave his sons powerful names: Carlo, Aristodemo, Attilio, Gaetano, Ercole, and Amadeo.
Carlo Tranquillo Benvenuto Orsi (1856-1944) was the only child of Giovanni’s first wife, Maria Luigia Clementina Affaticati. None of Carlo’s forenames appear earlier in known Orsi lines, although his maternal grandfather was named Carlo Affaticati. Maria Affaticati died when Carlo was very young; two months after Carlo turned three, Giovanni married Maria Annunciata Borella, the mother of his following eight surviving children.
Known as Charlie in the United States, Carlo Orsi’s name seems innocuous enough, but given the obvious heroic antecedents of his brothers, Giovanni likely named him for one or more of the great men of history.
Perhaps his inspiration was Charles Martel (c. 688-741), the Frankish ruler and progenitor of the Carolingian Dynasty. “Martel” means “hammer” in the Frankish tongue. Charles Martel spent most of his adult life at war and consolidating power in the vacuum left in the last gasps of the Merovingian Dynasty (c. 481-751). One of Charles Martel’s significant military achievements was repelling the Umayyads at the Battle of Tours in 732, effectively preventing the Muslim invasion of Gaul. At the time, the Umayyad Caliphate controlled Al-Andalus – nearly all of the Iberian peninsula – and would for another 750 years.
Carlo may also have been named in honor of Charles Martel’s equally notorious grandson, Charles the Great, or Charlemagne. Charlemagne removed the Germanic Lombards from power in the northern Italian peninsula in 774, which may have stirred Giovanni Orsi’s imagination since that directly affected his family’s history. In 800, Charlemagne was crowned emperor by Pope Leo III, the first emperor of the Western Roman Empire in 300 years. The German parts of his realm became known as the Holy Roman Empire, an imperium that persisted for a thousand years.
The first son born to Giovanni Orsi’s second wife was Aristodemo (1865-1905) – a name that would be passed down for two more generations. There were many famous and noteworthy men named Aristodemus, so figuring out which one was on Giovanni’s mind when he named his son is difficult.
Perhaps the inspiration was Aristodemus of Messenia, who, in the 8th century BCE, offered to sacrifice his virgin daughter to the gods to win a war but instead murdered her when her betrothed declared her to be pregnant and, therefore, not a virgin. That much patriarchal bliss creeps me out, so I choose to dismiss this possibility.
The next candidate could be Aristodemus of Cumae, a military governor who became a populist and was propelled to tyrannical power by an adoring public. (This hits uncomfortably close to home in November 2024.) He was eventually assassinated for his abuses of power. He also won a couple of battles against the Etruscans, so he was active in Giovanni’s homeland. Since he was on the opposite side of the locals, we can probably rule him out as well.
Aristodemus of Cydathenaeum was a student of Socrates. Plato said he was a barefoot runt of low birth; Xenophon said he was a dwarf; and Aristophanes used him as a sexually promiscuous character in the comedy Banqueters. While the classic Orsi sense of humor means this man has great appeal, I suspect Giovanni would have had a more respected namesake in mind.
Aristodemus was the name of one of two survivors of the 300 Spartans sent to defend Sparta against the Persian incursion at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE. I doubt Giovanni would have picked this one, however. The reason lies in just how Aristodemus survived Thermopylae.
For some reason, King Leonidas ordered Aristodemus and another soldier, Eurytus, to return to Sparta. Eurytus, who was blind, disobeyed orders, charged into the fray of attacking Persians, and promptly and heroically died anyway. Because Aristodemus obeyed his king’s orders, he lived and, according to Herodotus, was forever afterward known as “Aristodemus the Coward.” The other survivor of the 300, Pantites, had been sent to Thessaly, and when he learned that 298 of his companions had died at Thermopylae, he hanged himself in shame. Aristodemus, apparently, was not sufficiently chagrined by his own survival to follow suit.
Perhaps one of the Aristodemuses known for literary and philosophical works was Giovanni’s inspiration for the name. In the 1st century CE, Plutarch mentioned at least two of his contemporaries named Aristodemus: one was a Platonic philosopher, and the other collected fables à la the Brothers Grimm. There were several writers, one of whom wrote epigrams, another who summarized the philosophies of Herodian of Antioch, and a couple of others whose literary achievements do not survive but who were mentioned by their contemporaries.
To me, though, the most inspiring Aristodemuses of Letters were a pair of grammarians and pedagogues who lived in the 1st century BCE, Aristodemus of Nysa the Elder and Aristodemus of Nysa the Younger. Being a pedantic grammarian and pedagogically inclined, I can’t deny their appeal, especially if I imagine great-great-grand-nonno as a man of my own sensibilities. Both were teachers of the great philosopher and geographer Strabo, and Aristodemus the Younger also taught Julius Caesar’s son-in-law, Pompey the Great. Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus formed the infamous First Triumvirate, which kicked off the Roman Empire. So, I pick these guys as Giovanni’s inspiration.
Giovanni’s third son was my great-grandfather Attilio (1867-1929). His namesake is obvious. Attila the Hun needs no further elucidation.
The fourth son, Gaetano (1869-1936), a.k.a. “Guy,” presents more of a muddle. Many Gaetanos of arts and letters may have inspired Giovanni, but the strongest contender is probably Gaetano of dei Conti di Thiene, also known as Saint Cajetan. Gaetano was a lawyer and papal diplomat who lived during the late Renaissance. He established hospitals in Venice and his hometown of Vicenza, helped create the monastic order of the Theatines, and was tortured by mutinous soldiers of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V after the Sack of Rome in 1524. He also helped found the Bank of Naples. He is the patron saint of bankers and the unemployed, which seems an odd juxtaposition. Then again, maybe Giovanni simply liked the name.
Ercole (1871-1911) came next. Ercole is the Italian version of Hercules. As with Attilio/Attila, no further explanation is necessary. We note that Lucrezia Borgia and her third husband, Alphonse d’Este, the Duke of Ferrera, Modena, and Reggio, named their son and heir Ercole.
Last came Amadeo (1880-?). Amadeus was the name of many Counts and Dukes of Savoy and Kings of Sardinia. Piacenza and Emilia-Romagna were ruled by the House of Savoy and the Kingdom of Sardinia before the creation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. I think of the name Amadeo as equivalent to the names of the American founding fathers being visited upon the newborns of the masses. Those of us whose ancestors were in the nascent United States have direct ancestors, uncles, and cousins whose names were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and the like.
Giovanni Orsi did not name any of his sons for his male ancestors or (with the possible exception of Carlo) for his fathers-in-law. He had no sons named Antonio, Domenico, Francesco, Giacomo, Giuseppe, or Giovanni for his father, grandfathers, or great-grandfathers. He did not name them Pietro, Luigi, or Paolo for his uncles or brothers.
He seems to have named them for his heroes, for the powerful and intelligent men he admired.