Noto
A surname found in Italy and elsewhere, likely from a personal name rather than a place or trade.
The #9,810 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 93,559 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname Noto is most plausibly connected to a Germanic personal-name base represented in older forms like Noto, Noto, Noth, and related names. The old writers cited here link it to a root meaning 'need' or 'necessity' in Germanic languages, though such explanations are not always certain. In Italian usage, Noto can also be associated with the given name or epithet Noto, so the surname may reflect descent from or connection to a man called Noto rather than a descriptive word directly.
History
The historical notes in the sources point to a broader family of names found across Germanic-speaking Europe, with related spellings appearing in medieval records and later surnames. In Italy, Noto is also familiar as a surname and place-name, so some modern bearers may have independent regional origins. Because the excerpts are brief and partly incidental, the exact line of development for any one family cannot be fixed from them alone.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Several 19th-century surname scholars grouped Noto with a cluster of short Germanic names built on the same old root as Nott and Noth.
From the historical record
“>. Oif^d. CO. HonK, ibid o. Noto, ibid. Henry k! Tun Kbty"* QMK, p. 177.”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, with special American instances