SURNAMES IN ITALY

Surname Portoghese

Origin and meaning

Nickname for a person coming from Portugal.

E. De Felice and E. Rossoni agree that the surname indicates a Portuguese origin, from the patronymic Portoghese ("citizen, native of Portugal").

Rossoni adds that, in some cases, it could be a matter of Sephardic Jewish families expelled from Portugal in 1568.

Variants

Geographic distribution: The South (predominantly)

📍 You can view how this surname is distributed in Italy: View distribution in Italy (Cognomix)

Drawing on 3 authors, this entry presents the different hypotheses about the origin of the surname, avoiding a single oversimplified explanation.

Sources

This entry of the Italian Surname Meanings dictionary is based on the following specialized onomastic sources:

  • De Felice, E. (1978). Dizionario dei cognomi italiani. Milano: Mondadori.
  • Rossoni, E. (2002). Origine e storia dei cognomi italiani. Retrieved from https://www.cognomiitaliani.org
  • Research conducted by Surnames in Italy, the English-language project of Ancestros Italianos, based on the bibliography cited in the references.