I just returned from 4 weeks in Italy which was a combination of working on the project and some fun. That fun did not include thinking of a name for the property.
Just like naming a child, naming the property started as a fun job. But once you involve multiple people, your darlings start getting killed, and soon you are just throwing names at the wall like sad spaghetti, hoping something sticks. Nothing does, of course, because while you started off with grand ideas like animals and birds and places, once you run out of those, you then are just texting different names for dirt to your friends and partners on the off chance they think names of dirt sound incredibly poetic.
Then add into that mix that this is all happening in a different language. We turned over every Italian dictionary and thesaurus to try to find words that sounded sonorous in both English and Italian. It turns out that list has a lot of words on it, but most of those words have already been used for other properties, or they sound amazing in English and silly in Italian. For example, Big Sky or “Cielo Grande” sounded lovely to our ears, but when we ran it by our Italian friends, they burst out laughing and said that “c’e lo grande” (different spelling, but sounds exactly the same) was a way to catcall women and describe their anatomy by saying “it’s big!”
Not that anyone would believe them.
So many hours were spent trying to finalize a name.
Let me say that again: so many hours were spent.
We considered hundreds of ideas. Some of them were brilliant (if we do say so ourselves), but then the domain wasn’t available, or there were villas who had already claimed the name (because it was brilliant). We grew tired of asking each other to think of names, so we turned to ChatGPT, but it turns out it’s just as tiring when AI can’t think of any names either. So we did the only logical thing: we started avoiding the topic entirely.
But eventually lightning struck. Somewhere in all of our wanderings, we landed on the perfect name. There weren’t any other villas with the name that we could find, just one small apartment-style hotel in another province. There would be no real crossover with our property, so we said the name again and again and we all fell in love: Adagio.
Except that we had forgotten an important step in our process: check for trademarks.
Always Check For Trademarks
This little apartment style hotel turned out to be part of a much bigger group of French hotels, that had made a tiny little inroad to Italy. An inroad they were protecting with their life. All other names we had considered maybe had one trademark—this one had at least six.
In comparison to a thousand, which felt like the amount of names we had gone through up to this point, six did not seem like a big number, so we thought we should go ahead and try to use the name anyway. We sent it off to our trademark attorney, who said we could use it if we really wanted to, but “it is highly likely that this company will oppose the registration of your trademark, and in such a case, they would be given priority due to their numerous registered trademarks with similar characteristics. Furthermore, attempting to register this trademark would likely result in lengthy delays and additional costs due to the oppositions that would be filed.”
In other words, six was a lot of trademarks, and we shouldn’t even try.
We had been so in love with the name, and were even referring to the property as Adagio, liking the ring of it every time we said it. It was like we had finally named our child at the hospital, were absolutely sure after a week that we had nailed it, and then the doctor burst into our house and said we had to change our child’s name because someone else in France was using it.
We were deflated.
Goodbye, Adagio.
We Need Your Help
More accurately, we ARE deflated. And tired of looking up names of dirt on the off chance it sounds poetic.
We tried asking the villa what it wanted to be named, but it didn’t work.
So once again we turn to our friends and audience, because we need help figuring out the right name.
We’ve revisited our list of candidates, which was very long, and made it very short. Please help us by voting for your favorite (and also your least favorite, hating a name is just as important as loving it).
Maybe we could name it Villa Sunset by the Pool.
What’s In A Name?
Before we get to the list, we should say that we don’t have many requirements. We just want our name to evoke the feeling of relaxed luxury and feel like Tuscany and also have a connection to our property. It also needs to sound interesting in English and Italian.
I can’t imagine why we are having a problem.
But Wait, What Is The Property Even?
I guess it would help if we shared a few details about the property.
The property is 120 acres of land that has an ancient Etruscan road running down to the farm. The first stone was laid in 1206, and originally it was a small village, until it was abandoned and sat in ruin for hundreds of years. It was then purchased and restored with all original historical considerations, and is unique in that it sits adjacent to thousands of acres of a nature preserve, so that every morning you are greeted by untouched natural Tuscan wilderness.
While it feels remote, it is only 30 minutes from the historic medieval city of Siena, and only 75 minutes from the Florence. The estate allows you to enjoy Tuscany as never before, away from the bustle of city life, but still close enough to the famous hilltop towns of Italy, as well as world-class restaurants and wineries. Even so, once you arrive, you never want to leave.
The property features a luxury stone villa outfitted with exquisite furnishings and luxury amenities, a resort-style pool, spa, and a fitness facility, all set in the middle of an elegant working farm, blending luxury with rusticity.
And Finally, The Names
Here is our short list of candidates:
Selvaggio / Villa Selvaggio - This means a wild place or person. This is fitting given the secluded location that is surrounded by the wild woods of a protected nature preserve, some of the most undisturbed nature in Italy where many wild animals and plants thrive.
Villa Verdone / Verdone Estate - Verdone has two meanings. It is the Italian name for the greenfinch, which frequent the vineyards of this small family estate in Tuscany. It is also used to describe the deep green of the forest, where our property sits.
Pietra Serena (pronounced suh-REH-nuh) - Pietra serena is a blue-gray sandstone used extensively in Renaissance Florence for architectural details, originally discovered by the Etruscans. We have an Etruscan road on our property, as well as pietra serena in our buildings.
Villa Santolina / Santolina Estate - a Mediterranean plant that grows on the property, with both ornamental and medicinal uses.
Villa Stellato / Stellato Estate - This means starry village which fits since the property is located in a dark sky area with amazing night sky viewing (and there is an observatory).
Villa Siderea - From siderale, meaning "celestial" or "of the stars" in Latin.
Vallara Estate / Borgo Vallara / Villa Vallara - Vallara is an invented word that combines the Italian word for valley (valle) with a feminine suffix that sounds like air (aria).
Or share is your idea - If you have an amazing name you’d like us to consider, please share! Seriously. We don’t even know how to make words anymore.
We thought about naming it the Blue Ridge Mountain but it was also taken.
This is actually a picture of the harvest moon and the stars, not the sunset. Maybe we name it Villa Why Is The Moon So Bright.
