Vitale
An Italian surname from a personal name meaning “vital” or “full of life,” ultimately tied to Latin vita, “life.”
The #2,725 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 23,354 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Vitale comes from the medieval personal name Vitalis, from Latin vita meaning “life.” In Christian use, the name carried the sense of life, vitality, and hope for eternal life. As a surname, it would originally have identified someone as “son of Vitale” or descended from a man with that given name.
History
The name was popular in medieval Christian Europe because of saints and martyrs called Vitalis, and it remained common in Italy. Italian Vitale also spread into other languages and Jewish communities in Europe in adapted forms. In English-language sources of the 19th century, it is often treated as an Italian surname rather than a native English one.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The same Latin root produced the English adjective “vital,” so the surname literally belongs to the same word family as “life” and “vitality.”
From the historical record
“Veraraus (We speak the truth), Urbanus, Vicarius, Vitulo (Calf), - Vocaro, Vocati, Voeaturo, - Viator, Venator, Vitale, Vireo, Vetera, Vuepe, Vulpius, Venia, Ventura, Vieinus, Vicini, Vinalis, Valente, Veneno, Virtus, Vacca (Cow), -”
— A Grammar of American Surnames