Means "forty". It comes from a nickname.

Origin and meaning

Rossoni considers Quaranta a surname diffused throughout Italy, with important concentrations in Apulia, Campania, Lazio, Piedmont and Lombardy. He puts forward a possible origin in place names (such as Quaranta, province of Asti) or in the devotion to the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, Christian martyrs venerated in the East. According to him, the surname could have arisen as a religious or symbolic numerical reference, related to the number forty (member number 40, fortieth child, etc.).

De Felice classifies it as a numeral surname, derived directly from the number quaranta ("forty"). He holds that it is a descriptive nickname, applied for symbolic or popular reasons, a frequent formation in Italian onomastics (such as Decimo, Sesto, Trenta).

Lastrico supplies a double hypothesis:

• In northern Italy, the surname could derive from the locality of Quaranti (Asti), near Asti.
• In the south, he mentions a legendary interpretation, which attributes the origin of the surname to a group of forty Norman pilgrims who liberated Salerno from the Saracens in the year 1016. After the feat, the group was called "dei Quaranta," and the name would have passed to their descendants, giving rise to the surname and its variants such as Quarantelli and Quarantini.

Sgaramella notes that Quaranta could be a name given in honour of the Santi Quaranta, forty Roman soldiers martyred for converting to Christianity. He also suggests a relation with numerological criteria that are not always clear, common in surnames such as Cinque, Sette, Dieci. He documents the presence of the surname in Apulia (Cerignola, Bari, Foggia, Fasano, Mola), and records it from the year 1623 (Pietro Francesco Quaranta) and 1824 (Pasquale Quaranta della Rocca Forzata, Taranto).