Yeah, but why would Rockstar give him the name, accent, etc.? It's ridiculously obvious they meant him to be an Italian. Rockstar was simply giving into requests considering you weren't an Italian in GTA3. And with San Andreas they took the "gangsta" root.
Sure in real life you can say "Oh, Italian names don't mean anything" but are video games that deep? No. They just make a character. Claude was non-Italian. Vercetti was Italian, CJ was African-American. I also recall Vercetti using an Italian word or two during the game.
I don't quite think that, in that time period, an Italian would have gotten along that well with Cubans or Hatians as is shown in the game.
Again, it's a video game. It's a hybrid of Miami Vice and Scarface.
