Monteleone
An Italian surname from place names meaning “mountain lion,” or more generally “lion mountain.”
The #9,074 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 85,715 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Monteleone is an Italian habitational surname, originally given to someone from a place called Monteleone. The name is built from monte, meaning “mountain,” and leone, meaning “lion,” so the place-name sense is literally “lion mountain” or “mount of the lion.” Many Italian surnames of this type arose when people moved away from their home town and were identified by it.
History
Monteleone appears in Italian place names in several regions, which helped the surname spread independently in different areas. The name also occurs in historical Italian and Italian-American records as a geographic identifier rather than a single family origin. Because several towns once bore the name Monteleone, the surname may have multiple local origins.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Several Italian towns historically used the name Monteleone, so people with the surname may trace their name to different places rather than one single ancestral village.
From the historical record
“Florence, Santaeroce, Salerno, - Arno, Sarno, Adige, (see Tiber), Cosenza, Caserta, Bergamo, Loretto, Regio, Benevento, Sorrento, Gaeta, Monteverde, Monteleone, Montalbano, Novi, Como, Villalonga, Lodi, Marengo, Rivoli, Montebello, Areola, Solferino, Magenta, Lucca, Taranto, Brindisi, Bres- cia, Casanova, - Elba…”
— A Grammar of American Surnames