In this article, Marinelli employs the lexical database ItalWordNet (IWN), which is an enlarged, updated version of the Italian WordNet. IWN is broader since a number of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and proper names have been added to the original Italian WordNet. When populating the database with these lexical items, particular cases of polysemy were found, especially in the case of proper names. In this context, the aim of this paper is to analyse specific uses of proper names, highlighting polysemic productions which happen by means of a metaphorical use of the proper name, as in "That athlete is a Titan"; via metonymy (e.g. "To read Dante"); or through lexical mechanisms like analogy/synecdoche (e.g. "He would like to eat a Carpaccio"). Thus, after providing readers with an overview of IWN, the author examines several examples following Conceptual Metaphor Theory.