Onomastica infantile nelle "Piccole anime" di Matilde Serao. Canituccia, Aloe e Rosso Malpelo: l'essere e l'apparire

The article explores Matilde Serao's onomastic decisions in her collection of short stories "Piccole anime" (1883), which are entirely devoted to the world of childhood. Among the stories analyzed in the article, "Canituccia" stands out; it tells the story of a little red-headed girl who was abandoned by her mother and regarded as wicked by her stepmother. With the name Canituccia, hypocorism of Candida, the author disproves this judgment and offers a clue of the girl's true nature. Instead, in "Rosso Malpelo", Verga made the opposite decision by bestowing a name that adapts itself to the character's appearance as well as popular superstition. Aloe in the short story "Alla scuola" is also interesting; her name and also her clothing reveal a life poised between appearance and being. Thus Serao's two girls are feminine alter egos of Verga's "caruso", but Serao's attitude is more conventional and sentimental compared to that of Verga, who by using the technique of regression, renounces to the right to judge.