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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Catalan and Spanish : possibly from a truncated form of Catalan olives or Spanish olivas ‘olives’, presumably applied as a metonymic occupational name for someone who worked cultivating olive trees, or curing and selling olives.
  • Greek : nickname from the livas (classical Greek lips), the sirocco, a hot dust-laden wind originating in Libya. Since this wind is hot, the term was probably a nickname denigrating someone’s temper.

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