Table of contents
Family name origins & meanings
- Galician and Portuguese : widespread habitational name from any of numerous places in Galicia and Portugal named Mato, from mata ‘brushwood’, ‘scrub’, ‘thicket’.
- Spanish : topographic name from mato ‘scrub’.
- Catalan (Mató) : metonymic occupational name for a dairyman, from a word meaning ‘cream’; ‘curds’, ‘curd cheese’.
- Hungarian (Mató) : from a pet form of the personal name Maté, Hungarian form of Matthew.
- Sioux : 'bear'.