In Italian, the name Carmela means “Garden” and it has Jewish origins, in fact there is a mountain called Karmel in the Palestine that means” God’s garden”.

 

A powerful and enduring Southern-Italian tradition is the naming of children after their grandparents and other family members. As opposed to the American tradition, for instance, of giving a father’s name to his son, adding “Junior” to the end of it, the Italian custom is respectful of a hierarchy:

The first son is named after his paternal grandfather; the first daughter after her paternal grandmother.

The second son is named after his maternal grandfather; the second daughter after her maternal grandmother.

Then, if you’re blessed (or crazy) enough to have more children, you can, after all four grandparents have had their names passed down, start picking from siblings, aunts, uncles, and patron saints.

This is why in many Italian old-style families, there are duplicate names. This was done as a sign of respect, and also as dutiful adherence to tradition. It was a means of remembering whom you came from and of ensuring that the names of your ancestors – and by extension their memories – lived on in generations to come.

But things are changing rapidly.
The meaning of my name 
My name is Cinzia, Cynthia in English. My grandmother’s name was Crescenza, something like “growing” or “growth” in English. When my mother was pregnant, my clever grandmother thought that her name wasn’t so nice for a baby girl, so my parents tried to find a name which looked like Crescenza and they found Cinzia.

Cinzia derived from the Latin and Greek Kynthia latinized form of Greek Κυνθια (Kynthia) which means "woman from Kynthos". This was an epithet of the Greek mythological goddess of the moon and hunting Artemis, given because Kynthos was the mountain on the island of Delos on which she and her twin brother Apollo were born. Selene, the Greek personification of the moon, and the Roman Diana were also sometimes called "Cynthia”. It was not used as a given name until the Renaissance and it became popular in the late 20th century. Cinzia wasn’t thought to be the name of a Saint so I was baptized as Maria Rosaria which is the name of the Virgin Mary (from rosary). When I was born a christian baby had to be named after the name of a saint. 

(Annett without e at the end)

Annette has different origins - French, English and Hebrew.

In French it means gracious.

In English it is a variant of Ann: A variant of Hannah, which was introduced in Great Britain in the 13th century and became popular in the 14th century through the St. Anne cult. The form of the name varies with fashion.

In Hebrew the Annette means - grace...

Why am I called Annett without e at the end?

There is a simple explanation: The midwife who wrote down the name at my birth did not know the variant with e.

She said: "The name is written as I know it, without e!")

More important for the tradition is my 2nd first name - Ruth. It is the name of my mother. In my family the girls get the name of the mother or other female family members as the 2nd name.

My last name is Steiner. There are different meanings, one variant is this: Inhabitants near a stone or rock; often a boundary mark; a dyer, especially made of glass instead of fabric.

In the New Testament, a woman released by Jesus from evil spirits, present later at his crucifixion in Golgotha, is Saint Mary Magdalene (Saint Mary of Magdala). She also discovered the empty tomb and she was a witness to the resurrection. 

Foreign language forms:

Magdalena (Latin), Magdalene, Magdalen, Madeline (English), Magdalene (German), Madeleine (French), Magdalena (Spanish), Maddalena, Lena (Italian), Magdalina (Russian), Magdalena, Magda (Czech), Magda, Lena, Lenka (Slovak).