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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian : either a nickname from modesto ‘modest’, ‘unassuming’ or from the personal name Modesto, from Late Latin Modestus (meaning ‘moderate’, ‘gentle’, ‘temperate’). The name was borne by several early saints, including a child martyred at Alexandria, Egypt, and an 8th-century evangelist of Carinthia.

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