He did not like the second name “Benito”, which he never used, given the natural reference to Mussolini, so much so that he asked and obtained to be called only Antonio.
The news is reported in the Brescia pages of Il Corriere della sera which took it from the notice board of the Municipality of Desenzano, where a citizen chose to give up the middle name «Benito» and his request was accepted by the Prefecture.
Family reasons
«The name Antonio Benito has in fact never been used for obvious reasons for embarrassment given the clear political connotation”, is reported in the document filed with the Prefecture and reported by the newspaper. A request accepted by the prefect of Brescia who gave the green light to the change wanted by the fifty-nine year old. In the request forwarded through a lawyer, the man asked to do without his name due to the clear reference to the Duce as well as add a surname for “emotional reasons” out of gratitude towards the mother and maternal grandparents. The reasons that pushed him to change his name are therefore not linked exclusively to the political sphere but also to “practical, family and emotional reasons”. Among other things, as was added in the official documentation, the protagonist of the story, «during the school period in the lists he appeared as Antonio and never as Benito and only later, during high school, did the second appear in some documents first name”. Antonio then asked to remove «Benito» from any register. A name that caused him, as written in the question, “embarrassment” due to the references to Mussolini.
