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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Italian (La Porta), Catalan, and Aragonese : topographic name for someone who lived near the gates of a fortified town (and often was in charge of them; thus in part a metonymic occupational name), from porta ‘gateway’, ‘door’, ‘entrance’ (Latin porta, ‘door’, ‘entrance’), with the definite article la.

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