Family name origins & meanings
- Italian : occupational name for a cultivator or seller of vegetables, ortolano, from a derivative of orto ‘vegetable garden’ (from Latin hortus ‘garden’).
- Italian : from a term denoting a kind of bunting (a small bird, Emberiza hortulana, prized as a delicacy by Mediterranean gourmets); the surname may alternatively be a nickname from this sense.
- Spanish : occupational name from a variant spelling of Old Spanish hortolano ‘cultivator or seller of vegetables’.