Family name origins & meanings
- Italian, Spanish (Santa María), and Catalan (alongside the variants Santamaria in Italian and Catalan, and Santamaría in Spanish) :
- habitational name from any of numerous places so named for the dedication of their churches to the Virgin Mary (or to some other St. Mary), of which there are over 150 examples in Italy alone.
- in some cases, possibly from a personal name of the same derivation.
- name often adopted by Catalan and Spanish Sephardic Jews who converted to Catholicism, often under duress, in the 14th and 15th centuries.