Explaining Ciccio

This evening I'm going to write in English... Hoping this will be clear enough, I will go through a topic that has become very sensitive in the last weeks: I need to explain to the non-italian speaking people, when the use of Ciccio is valid and my personal approach to it...

Well, let's start saying that Ciccio is for men, Ciccia for women. Cicciolino is a kind of small Ciccio, Cicciolina could be a small Ciccia, but is also a well known porn-actress... For this reason, I try to avoid the use of Cicciolina, and consequent misunderstandings... But what does Ciccio/a means? Well, generally, if written with the capital C, should be a name, better saying a nickname. It is used between people that know each other since time and have a certain level of confidence... Generally is used for names like Francesco (Ciccio) or Francesca (Ciccia), but I heard people whose name was Emanuela, Annalisa and more, being Ciccia for all their lives...

Ciccione...

It is also possible that ciccia is written with the small c. In that case, we are talking about those nice "fat belts" also called belly... Of course I would not expect to say to anybody "Ciao ciccia!"... It would be not nice and also not understood... I could say to someone: "Ciao ciccione!" or "Ciao cicciona!", but only in the case the person looked like one of those big americans... And also in that case, I don't think I could ever be so nasty... So, basically, whenever I say "Ciao Ciccio!" or "Ciao Ciccia!" I am using the capital C!


The abuse of Ciccia and Ciccio as to the number of people I name that way, could confuse a bit... But this comes from the fact that when people are relevant for me, their name switches to the best sounding nickname... So here we have Ciccio, Ciccia, Ciccigno, Cickigna, Ciccina, Ciccisito, Ciccetta and I could keep on for some time...


Dear All Together Cicci, I wish to everybody to find many other Ciccio and Ciccia, and even if they will be a bit "ciccioni", I'm sure we'll use always the capital C...