My question is can you have an Italian first name if you have no trace of Italian in your family and your last name is French? Would that be horrible? OR have a first name of a different origin unrelated to your last name?
I like for boys: [name]Giovanni[/name] (vanni) and Benelli (benny) I guess I like the e sound at the end…
Thoughts???
[name]Giovanni[/name] is a great name, providing you pronounce it correctly. It’s most commonly [name]Gianni[/name] as a nn though. I’ve never known an Italian with [name]Vanni[/name] as a nn. Benelli the last name? I don’t know it. There’s [name]Beniamino[/name], [name]Benito[/name], [name]Benedetto[/name], and [name]Bernardo[/name], but I don’t know a Benelli.
People seem to be doing a lot cross-culturally these days, so it seems to me, as long as you don’t butcher the prn, you’re okay.
Yes, unfortunately the fam doesn’t care for [name]Giovanni[/name] 
and Benelli being a last name I think could transition over to a first name? I like the sound of it and the nn potential…but I don’t like to many other ben like names only [name]Bennett[/name], which seems to be rising in popularity in my eyes. But my likings for names are all over the place…which has been no simple task for my husband and myself.
I don’t see why not. Most people I know have a first name that doesn’t match the origin of their last name.
i would go with benelli! its interesting, easy to pronounce, and has a normal nickname. i personally love french names for example something totally oldschool such as louis-pierre! however i think its just a bit culture-heavy and honestly i feel the same about giovanni as it sounds like such a “typical italian” name. [name]Gio[/name] would be a cool nickname though
Does Benelli sound/look like a boy name? Is there a better spelling out there for it?
Our last name is French, too, and honestly I would not intentionally give my child a French first name. I figure the last name represents DH’s heritage so our childrens first names should either reflect mine or just be a name we love. So DD has a Norwegian name from my side with a French last name - and biased as I may be, I think it’s lovely. Our DS due in [name]September[/name] is still nameless but the names we are most considering are neither my or hubby’s heritage. I think overall it’s most important to use a name you love…its origin matters very little, if at all - and there are are always other “variations” of the same name that can be used if you are hung up on there being a valid cultural association.
I like [name]Giovanni[/name]…Benelli is ok. If you like the long E ending there are plenty of non-Italian options too…[name]Finley[/name], [name]Henry[/name], [name]Dmitri[/name], [name]Cody[/name], [name]Timothy[/name], [name]Remy[/name], [name]Westley[/name]/[name]Wesley[/name], [name]Gregory[/name], [name]Anthony[/name], [name]Gary[/name], [name]Geoffrey[/name], [name]Bodhi[/name]/[name]Brody[/name], etc. Good luck!
Linguistic mismatch is nothing unusual. My only concern (and not a deal-breaker) is situations where one of the names is more familiar than the other. That is, there might be situations where one name could lead a person to try to say the other like it came from the same language. For example, if one name is obviously Italian, trying to say a C in the other name as CH.
I don’t know any Italians named Benelli, and I grew up in an Italian neighbourhood. It would be odd (to me) to give your child an Italian surname for a first name when there’s absolutely no family connection. What about [name]Benedict[/name], if you like [name]Bennett[/name]? Also, there’s the Hebrew name [name]Benoni[/name], which was the name [name]Rachel[/name] gave [name]Benjamin[/name] before she died. Also, just [name]Ben[/name] is a legitimate name, if that’s the nn you like.