Family name origins & meanings
- Italian (Sicily) : from Italian mallo ‘soft blanket’ (from Latin mallus ‘tuft of wool’, from Greek mallos ‘fleece’). Caracausi believes the surname may have arisen as a nickname for someone with curly hair.
- Asturian-Leonese : habitational name from a place called Mallo in Lleón province, Northwest Spain (probably from mallo ‘threshing flail’, ‘mallet’, or, alternatively, though less likely, from a pre-Roman territorial name).