Background: One of the most debated issues in the cognitive neuroscience of language is whether distinct semantic domains are differentially represented in the brain. Clinical studies described several anomic dissociations with no clear neuroanatomical correlate. Neuroimaging studies have shown that memory retrieval is more demanding for proper than common nouns in that the former are purely arbitrary referential expressions. In this study a semantic relatedness paradigm was devised to investigate neural processing of proper and common nouns. Methodology/Principal Findings: 780 words (arranged in pairs of Italian nouns/adjectives and the first/last names of well known persons) were presented. Half pairs were semantically related (''Woody Allen'' or ''social security''), while the others were not (''Sigmund Parodi'' or ''judicial cream''). All items were balanced for length, frequency, familiarity and semantic relatedness. Participants were to decide about the semantic relatedness of t)