Surname Prete
Origin and meaning
From the word "prete" = priest, derived from the Greek "presbyteros" = the eldest.
E. Rossoni notes that this surname derives from the founder of the family belonging to the family of a priest. As to its geographic distribution, he distinguishes two variants: Prete, proper to southern Italy, with a main presence in the Salento area —the southernmost zone of the region of Apulia—, and also in the Cosenza, Naples, Salerno and Rome areas; and Preti, characteristic of northern Italy, especially of Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna.
R. Brondolo agrees in the essentials by attributing the surname to one who "had or had had a priest in the family," and likewise places it in northern Italy. Brondolo adds, however, an alternative hypothesis: in some cases it could be a euphemistic diminutive of Mazzapreti, a designation that in popular tradition refers to a bat.
💡 The surname Prete also appears as variants of the surnames Preite and Preti in other studies consulted in this project.
Variants
Geographic distribution: Prete: southern Italy, with a main area in the Salento, the Cosenza area, the Naples, Salerno and Rome areas. Preti: northern Italy, especially Lombardy and Emilia
📍 You can view how this surname is distributed in Italy: View distribution in Italy (Cognomix)
Sources
This entry of the Italian Surname Meanings dictionary is based on the following specialized onomastic sources:
- Rossoni, E. (2002). Origine e storia dei cognomi italiani. Retrieved from https://www.cognomiitaliani.org
- Brondolo, R. (2004, May 23). Questioni di nomi e di terre [Weekly newspaper article]. L'Ancora. https://web.archive.org/brondolo_nomi_1.html
- Research conducted by Surnames in Italy, the English-language project of Ancestros Italianos, based on the bibliography cited in the references.