Masc./fem. name pairs in the 1427 Catasto of Florence

We’ll kick things off this month by looking at a very focused data set, the Online Catasto of Florence of 1427, edited by David Herlihy, Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, R. Burr Litchfield and Anthony Molho.

748 distinct masculine names and 255 distinct feminine names were recorded in the Catasto. The following 123 pairs of names from the Catasto show that there was widespread feminization of masculine names, both common and uncommon ones; 29% of the masculine names have a corresponding feminine form, while 48% of the feminine names are feminized forms of masculine names. The feminized forms show a fairly distinct pattern: In general, masculine terminal -o and -i changed to -a, and terminal -e and -a remained unchanged. There are few exceptions to this pattern.

In constructing this list, we considered only direct matches (e.g., ones where the only difference between the masculine and the feminine forms was the final vowel), with the exception of the pairs Agabito/Agabitta and Camillo/Cammilla. This means that feminine names that are feminization of diminutives that do not show up in the Catasto are not listed, nor are spelling variants, unless the variant occurs in both the men’s and the women’s names. As a result, this data underestimates the amount of pairs.

Masculine	Number	Feminine	Number
Agabito	1	Agabitta	1
Agnesa	1	Agnesa	1
Agnolo	86	Agnola	26
Alamanno	5	Alamanna	1
Aldighieri	1	Aldighiera	1
Alessandro	11	Alessandra	3
Andrea	206	Andrea	206
Andreolo	1	Andreola	1
Antonio	661	Antonia	84
Apollonio	5	Apollonia	15
Banco	5	Banca	2
Bartolo	72	Bartola	5
Bartolomeo	290	Bartolomea	46
Bello	1	Bella	5
Bene	2	Bene	1
Benedetto	70	Benedetta	6
Benevenuto	1	Benvenuta	2
Bernardo	132	Bernarda	5
Bertino	4	Bertina	1
Betto	18	Betta	17
Bettino	10	Bettina	1
Biagio	43	Biagia	5
Biondo	2	Bionda	2
Buono	14	Buona	6
Camillo	1	Camilla	1
Camillo	1	Cammilla	1
Cecco	38	Cecca	43
Chiaro	5	Chiara	3
Ciano	1	Ciana	1
Ciulo	1	Ciula	1
Corradino	1	Corradina	1
Cristofano	91	Cristofana	6
Deo	3	Dea	2
Domenico	234	Domenica	13
Dono	2	Dona	1
Donato	37	Donata	1
Donnino	6	Donnina	1
Dore	1	Dora	1</td
Duccio	11	Duccia	1
Feo	5	Fea	4
Felice	6	Felice	6
Filippo	134	Filippa	21
Fino	1	Fina	1
Fiore	1	Fiore	10
Franco	5	Franca	1
Francesco	390	Francesca	34
Franchino	1	Franchina	1
Frosino	30	Frosina	1
Gentile	7	Gentile	1
Geri	14	Gera	2
Gherardo	26	Gherarda	2
Giano	5	Giana	1
Giannotto	2	Gianotta	1
Gilio	2	Gilia	1
Giovanni	739	Giovanna	39
Girolama	12	Girolama	1
Gostanzo	1	Gostanza	19
Grazia	3	Grazia	1
Guglielmino	2	Gugliemina	1
Guido	47	Guida	4
Iacopo	329	Iacopa	15
Lapo	17	Lapa	8
Lapaccio	3	Lapaccia	3
Leonardo	82	Leonarda	12
Lippo	8	Lippa	1
Lisa	1	Lisa	45
Lore	1	Lora	2
Lorenzo	216	Lorenza	12
Lotto	13	Lotta	1
Lottieri	2	Lottiera	2
Luca	82	Luca	4
Lucio	1	Lucia	14
Manetto	9	Manetta	1
Mariano	20	Marianna	1
Maruccio	1	Maruccia	1
Maso	44	Masa	4
Matteo	136	Mattea	28
Mea	2	Mea	30
Michelino	2	Michelina	1
Migliore	5	Migliore	3
Mino	3	Mina	1
Naldino	1	Naldina	1
Nanni	92	Nanna	51
Nardo	25	Narda	1
Nastagio	2	Nastagia	3
Nencio	10	Nencia	4
Neri	37	Nera	5
Neso	1	Nese	2
Niccolo	259	Niccola	1
Nigi	4	Nigia	1
Nofri	24	Nofra	6
Nuto	5	Nuta	1
Nutino	1	Nutina	1
Onesto	1	Onesta	1
Orso	2	Orsa	1
Orsino	2	Orsina	1
Pace	9	Pace	2
Pagolo	132	Pagola	10
Papero	1	Papera	14
Papino	2	Papina	1
Piccardo	1	Piccarda	1
Piero	391	Piera	53
Pippo	23	Pippa	19
Ricco	6	Ricca	1
Riccardo	9	Riccarda	1
Rosso	6	Rossa	1
Salvestro	47	Salvestra	4
Sandro	40	Sandra	19
Santi	23	Santa	5
Simone	132	Simona	18
Stefano	69	Stefana	2
Taddeo	33	Taddea	14
Tedesco	1	Tedesca	1
Tommaso	138	Tommasa	19
Tone	2	Tona	1
Toro	1	Tora	1
Ulivo	2	Uliva	2
Vaggio	1	Vaggia	6
Vangelista	2	Vangelista	2
Vanni	20	Vanna	5
Verdiano	1	Verdiana	1
Vettorio	6	Vettoria	1
Zanobi	88	Zanobia	20