D'Onofrio

doh-noh-FREE-oh

An Italian surname meaning “son of Onofrio,” ultimately from the saint’s name Honorius/Onuphrius.

The #5,769 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 51,423 Americans shares it.

🔗 Compare with another name ✨ Add a first name

Etymology

D'Onofrio is an Italian family name built from the personal name Onofrio, with the prefix D' meaning “of” or “from.” The given name Onofrio corresponds to Saint Onuphrius, whose name passed into Italian through late Latin and Greek forms. In this sense, the surname originally identified someone as “belonging to, or descended from, Onofrio.”

History

The surname is found chiefly among families of Italian origin, especially in southern Italy, where saint-based personal names became common hereditary surnames. Like many Italian surnames formed from a father’s given name, it spread through emigration to the Americas in the 19th and 20th centuries. In English-language records the apostrophe is often dropped, producing forms such as Donofrio.

Origin

patronymic or matronymicItalianGreekLate Latin

Regions

ItalySouthern ItalyUnited States

Variant spellings

D'OnofrioDonofrioDi OnofrioDe Onofrio

Fun fact

The name is linked to Saint Onuphrius, a desert hermit venerated in Eastern Christian tradition and later known in Italian as Onofrio.

Related surnames

Confidence: pattern inferred. No direct historical-dictionary match found; based on general naming-pattern knowledge.

← Search another surname