Nouns or nouns in Italian are divided by gender (masculine and feminine) and number (singular and plural).
Regarding people and animals, the distinction is in relation to sex: nouns of male living beings are masculine, while nouns of female living beings are feminine. For the nouns of things (both concrete and abstract) the distinction between maschile or femminile is purely conventional.
We classify Italian nouns by gender and number according to the ending vowel.
Example:
le persone (people) - plural, feminine
gli amici (friends) - plural, masculine
il ragazzo (guy) - singular, masculine
i capelli (hair) - plural (yes, in Italian it is plural!), masculine
la ragazza (girl) - singular, feminine
la fidanzata (girlfriend) - singular, feminine
l'uomo (man) - singular, masculine
il padre (father) - singular, masculine
la donna (woman) - singular, feminine
la madre (mother) - singular, feminine
The following table shows how to classify regular Italian nouns by gender according to the ending vowel of their singular form: