This surname and its variants may derive from the word Ronco or Ronchi. There are numerous place names derived from Ronco and their meaning may vary:

• The place name Ronco goes back to the medieval Latin word runcus / roncus = a waste place covered with brambles. From it derives the action runcare = to dig up; to clear a piece of land of thickets and brambles. Ronco is a denomination that recurs often in the countryside, recalling the origin of the place, made cultivable thanks to the intervention of the clearers who, in the medieval period, used among other tools the roncola = billhook, an object that later gave its name to many places in Italy. As deforestation advanced throughout Europe and the lands were cultivated, the word runcare began to be used in the sense of ploughing new, until then uncultivated, lands.
• It could derive from a nickname originated by the Celtic word ronc = hill, and could derive from a nickname originated by the fact that the family lived on a small hillock or ronco.

Related surnames identified in Italy

• Ronci, Ronchese, Ronchesi, Ronchetti, Ronchi, Ronchin, Ronchini, Ronchino, Ronco, Roncioni, Roncone