Acosta
A mostly Spanish surname, probably from a place-name or from a family line associated with the coast.
The #302 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 2,985 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Acosta is usually explained as a surname based on Spanish costa, meaning “coast” or “slope,” with the preposition a (“at” or “by”) fused to it in a place-based form. In other words, it likely began as a name for someone living by the coast or coming from a place called Costa/Costas. Some older writers also suggested a family-line explanation from the Roman name Costa, but that is less certain.
History
The name is well established in the Iberian world and spread widely through Spain, Portugal, and later the Americas. It is now especially common in Latin American countries and among Hispanic communities in the United States. Older 19th-century sources mention it without giving a settled derivation, and some speculative explanations tie it to Costa rather than to a straightforward geographical meaning.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
In Spanish, acosta is also a normal word form meaning “to the side” or “nearby” in some contexts, which has helped later writers connect the surname with location rather than occupation.
From the historical record
“The following names still exist among us, the deri- vation of some of which is not very obvious ; viz., Aber, Aberle and Aberly, Aborn, Acosta, Acron, Ades, Adier, Adwers, Agnew, Ahern, Ahier, Ahorens, Ahrend, Ailger, x\itken, Alcrois', Aldrich and Aldridge, Aldus, Alker, Allard, Allendorff, Alles, Allet, Allgower…”
— Suffolk Surnames (3rd ed.)