DanandVan:I like it, and it definitely sounds Italian to me. I just read an article that said even though Sophia is the #1 name, only 20,000ish babies were given that name last year. So I wouldn't discount it because of popularity (Plus the Italian spelling Sofia makes it a bit more unique). It sounds like a beautiful girl's name to me!
Do you still know the link to that article? I tried searching for it in various forms but it didn't turn up. Found an forum post that asked how many people actually knew young Sophia's. Several teachers weighed in an some said none, some said one. My friend has a 5 year old Sophia and there are none in her class and the name has been in the top 50 for a while.