Abstract
During its more than four hundred years of life, opera has been enriching the literary onomastic survey through its librettos, with piles of noms parlants, stereotyped names and also nameless characters. The diffusion of opera among the working classes led to the spreading of the most peculiar operatic names from the theatre at the end of the 19th century, sometimes twisted in comparison with the original spelling or misinterpreted. But librettists themselves had often modified even the names of historical characters for artistic reasons. Also singers have been altering their own names, contributing to further enrich the kaleidoscopic onomastics of the world of opera.