Lupo
A surname from the Latin word for “wolf,” often used as a nickname or as a Latinized family name.
The #6,298 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 56,912 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Lupo comes from Latin lupus, meaning “wolf.” In medieval records it often appears as a byname or personal name in Romance-language regions, sometimes as a straightforward reference to the animal and sometimes as a learned Latinized form of a vernacular surname. Related forms in different languages include Lupus, Lope, and Lobo, all going back to the same wolf-word root.
History
The name is well attested in medieval France, Italy, and the Iberian Peninsula, where wolf-based names were common in both given names and surnames. Some historical writers treated it as a noble or martial-sounding byname, while others simply saw it as a nickname derived from appearance, temperament, or a house sign. In later centuries it remained especially associated with Italian and Spanish surname traditions.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
One medieval writer even glossed a related form as “worse than a wolf,” showing how vividly these animal-based names could be interpreted.
From the historical record
“Fosbroke mentions a man whose sur- name represents him as " worse than a wolf" — Archembaldus Pejor-Lupo. See Wolfhunt in this Diet, as a surname derived from a useful employment. See also Pott, p. 665, Eng. Sum. i. 187, and Edinb. Rev. vol. CHI. p. 369. AVoolf and Woolfe are common surnames among naturalized”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom