What was Galileo Galilei's full birth name?

Galileo Galilei's full birth name was Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei.

The name identifies him as Galileo, son of Vincenzo, and connects his family to the longer Bonaiuti de' Galilei lineage. He was born in Pisa on 15 February 1564, when the city belonged to the Duchy of Florence rather than to a unified Italian state.

He is usually known simply as Galileo Galilei. Renaissance and early modern Italian naming practices were less standardized than modern conventions, and Galileo sometimes used only his given name. “Galileo” and “Galilei” ultimately derive from the Latin Galilaeus, meaning “of Galilee,” while the family’s naming history also involved the earlier Florentine figure Galileo Bonaiuti.

His father, Vincenzo Galilei, was a lutenist, composer, and music theorist. Galileo inherited that musical environment but became famous for astronomy, physics, mathematics, and engineering. The alternative names in the quiz confuse his father’s name, his mother’s family name, or later religious and family associations.

Galileo died in Arcetri near Florence on 8 January 1642, aged 77, after a career that helped establish modern observational astronomy and classical mechanics.