SURNAMES IN ITALY

Surname Tosi

Origin and meaning

Means "clean-shaven", usually denoting a younger man, from Latin tonsus "shaved".

Diffused in the north, in Tuscany and also in Veneto, with the highest frequency in Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany, it has as its base the name and original nickname and appellative Toso, of northern area but extended also to Tuscany and the centre. It continues the Latin tonsus, "shorn", with the extended meaning of "boy, young man", inasmuch as boys and young men wore their hair short.

💡 The surname Tosi also appears as variant of the surname Toso in other studies consulted in this project.

Variants

Altered forms and derivatives

Geographic distribution: North, Tuscany and Centre; greater frequency of Tosi and Toselli in Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany; Toso in the Venetias (Tosolini, Tosolin, Tositti, Tosato and Tosatto typical; Tosatti also Emilian-Romagnol); Tosinghi Tuscan (rare)

📍 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.
  • De Laurentiis, F. (2003). Cognomi occhiobellesi. Storia, curiosità, significati e classifiche. Occhiobello: Teatro Polivalente di Occhiobello (T.P.O.). Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20030516113456/http://www.comune.occhiobello.ro.it/cognomi/
  • Research conducted by Surnames in Italy, the English-language project of Ancestros Italianos, based on the bibliography cited in the references.