The surname Recco is a toponymic surname of Ligurian origin, closely linked to the locality of Recco, in the present-day province of Genoa. Its origin is explained by the identification of people coming from Recco, especially in contexts of mobility within the Genoese area and the Ligurian Levante.

The old documented forms show the evolution da Recco → d'Arecco → Arecco → Recco, a usual process in the formation of surnames linked to the place of origin. De Felice notes explicitly that Arécco is a Ligurian surname, specifically Genoese, formed from the place name Recco, with the agglutination of the preposition that indicated provenance.

In medieval sources the name Recco already appears as an anthroponym, for example in Latin records with the form Iacobus Recco, which confirms its early fixation as a surname.

Likewise, studies on Ligurian surnames highlight Recco as one of the historical nuclei where numerous local surnames were consolidated, many of them linked to maritime, artisanal and administrative families of the Genoese sphere.

Taken together, Recco originally identifies families native of the homonymous locality, integrated from the medieval period into the social and economic fabric of the Genoese territory, and later diffused towards other areas through internal movements and, later, emigration.

Surnames related to Recco

• Arecco
• D'Arecco
• Arécco (a historical/documentary form)
• De Recco (very infrequent, of an archaic type)

All these surnames share the same toponymic origin, linked to the Ligurian locality of Recco (Genoa), and arise from different ways of expressing provenance (da Recco → d'Arecco → Arecco / Recco).