What was the problem with the name Ramona? I can't find any Italian context for the name that would make it be seen as an embarrassing or shameful name to give a girl. From the dialogue it sounded as if it was aspirational perhaps, maybe like naming a child Tiffany would be in the USA? Any Italians or people familiar with Italian culture, please help!
shareNothing weird with it, really. I've lived in Italy for a few years and I've never met anyone with such a name, it's just unusual, even though I wouldn't be surprised to meet a Ramona, it sounds typically Italian somehow.
It sounds like "Romana" a female from Rome, almost like "Romano" (Carlo Verdone's character) which means exactly "Male from Rome".
Since these two characters are the only ones with whom Jep can reveal his true self, their name suggests their connection with the main source of beauty in the film, Rome itself. Also, they're the only main characters in the movie who speak with a very strong roman accent, wherein Jep has a typical accent from Naples.
I guess you're referring to the disco scene with Ramona's father, where Jep criticizes her name. That sequence, I believe, was meant to show Gambardella's dislike with the boorish attitude of Modern Rome.
He was basically asking why would somebody give such an unusual name to his daughter and to what purpose :)
Romana and Romano are not common names, as much as Ramona is not either.
But Ramona sounds a slutty name in Italy. Possibly because it's a foreign name (as Natasha, Jessica and so on). They have been all names used by prostitutes or porn actresses.
'What has been affirmed without proof can also be denied without proof.' (Euclid)
Ramona, for whatever reason, is considered an inelegant name, fit for an exotic dancer. In some parts of the North (so not in Rome), its four last letters are also a vulgar word for an anatomic part frequently associated with such professions.
shareI wouldn't consider it extremely "chavy" but I wouldn't argue if somebody said that.
It's not really common (at least it wasn't) like in other countries so that must be the point. "low class" couples in Italy have the tendency to give their children what are considered exotic names but end up being bad taste. Clichès names like that are Jessica, Christian, Deborah etc. but as I said, those are clichès, Ramona works better.
When he criticizes her name, he says something to the effect of, "Why would you give her that name, it implies ambition".
So I don't think Jep means that her name is trashy. On the contrary, Ramona is the female version of Raymond or Ramon. The meaning is pretty loosely translated as "protector" or "protecting hands".
Or maybe it's more obscure than that and he's referencing Commandant Ramona, a very short guerilla fighter for the Zapatista Liberation Army in southern Mexico. Interesting figure she was.
Either way, I think what he means is that that name means his old friend's daughter has a lot to live up to.
I'm italian, in Italy Ramona is a slutty name, good for a porn star... or a strip dancer. And since she is a strip dancer Jep sarcastically says its an ambitious name.
I think an equivalent in american culture might be names like Trisha, Candy, Brandy, Krystal, Mercedes...
It sounds cheap.
Also, it ends with -ona, which is an ending you can add to names to convey you are talking about a big object.
All in all it doesn't sound pretty at all.
I am not sure of the subtitles in English (I have watched the film without subtitles), but I am pretty positive that there was no talk of it being an "aspirational" name. On the contrary, it sounds like a name a prostitute would have.
Cynics like Jep are generally put off by anything that promises hope. Ramona, meaning ambition, does that. Plus, it once again points to his unfulfilled life. His employer even mentions later, "But you haven't had the career you deserve."
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I wouldn't know. But it made me think of the beautiful 1928 song (by Dolores del Rio in the film RAMONA, later that year put on record by Gene Austin) :
'Ramona, I hear the mission bells above
Ramona, they're ringing out our song of love'
-I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film.-
You're dead right there - it's a Mexican name (maybe Spanish too), feminine form of Ramon; not an Italian one, as far as I know. And though it may sound like the name of an east European prostitute, as has been suggested above, that wouldn't have been true 42 years earlier, when she was born: people couldn't leave east Europe then because of the Iron Curtain. So I don't have an answer for this; maybe Jep just doesn't like it.
shareRamona sounds like a name for a drag queen
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