What does “è nata” mean in Italian?

To say someone is born, Italian uses the verb nascere together with the verb essere (“to be”), not the verb for “to have.” So “she is born” is è nata and “he is born” is è nato — the last letter changes with the person. That is why “A Star Is Born” becomes È nata una stella: a star (stella) is a feminine word, so the ending is -a.

The film’s title opens the clip: “È nata una stella.” Word for word it reads “is born a star,” and because stella is feminine the verb ends in -a. The same pattern covers your own birth: a man says sono nato a Roma (“I was born in Rome”), a woman says sono nata a Roma. The verb is nascere (from Latin nasci, “to be born”), and its past form nato/nata always swaps its ending to match who or what was born — nato, nata, nati, nate. Pairing it with essere rather than avere (“to have”) is the easy thing to forget, since English just says “was born.”