Hilarius or Hilarious?

Behind our names

Recently I did wonder what are the meanings of our names and where the heck did they come from?! I looked my nonno’s name Ilario up, and sure enough it was from the Roman name Hilarius which was derived from Latin hilaris meaning “cheerful”. Or as my family likes to say, Hilarious. A great place to find out the meanings of names and the origins of them is at Behindthename.com.

Nonna told me how her grandfather Antonio chose the names of his grandchildren. She said her older brother Guerino’s name came from a book that her grandfather was reading, and the name Guerino was of some Roman gladiator. Now that’s cool.

This featured image, a piece of gold from my nonno’s 1949 identity card, was when he was just 17 years old, 4 years after the end of the Second World War.