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In Italian, I believe adding -lino to the end of a name means 'very small/tiny'
E.g. Piccolo is the Italian word for small while piccolino means very small

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So adding lino to a name, as far as I understand, is a common Italian diminutive and basically means "little ___" or little Ugo in this case.

This message was edited 11/3/2009, 2:56 AM

The only use of Ugolino I know of is for the character of Count Ugolino in Dante's Inferno. I suppose no one wants a name associated with a guy who is starved to death with his children and ends up in hell eating someone else's head for vengeance. I've no idea if Ugolino della Gherardesca, who really existed, was originaly named Ugo since he's always referred to as Ugolino.
I'm not sure why it's Ugolino rather than Ughino, but sometimes -lino is added instead of -ino, for reasons of euphony I suppose, so for instance you'd say Marcolino instead of Marchino for Marco.

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That I know, Lisa is mainly used as a nn for Elisabetta, but it's not very common.

No clue about Ugolino ... but the painting of the Mona Lisa has been around for several centuries.