Vital
A surname from the Latin personal name Vitalis, meaning “of life” or “life-giving.”
The #6,739 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 61,700 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Vital is usually understood as a surname taken from the old Christian given name Vitalis, from Latin vitalis, “pertaining to life,” ultimately from vita, “life.” In medieval use, this was a saint’s name as well as a personal name, which helped it pass into hereditary surnames. In French and Occitan areas it could appear simply as Vital, reflecting the shortened form of the saint’s name.
History
The name is well attested in medieval records through bearers of the personal name Vitalis, and later it survived as a hereditary surname in French-speaking regions. The surname also appears in Romance-language surname traditions where saint names were commonly adopted as family names. In some cases it may reflect a devotional or baptismal origin rather than a descriptive nickname.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Some 19th-century surname writers explicitly linked Vital with the saint’s name Vitalis and noted its continued use in western France.
From the historical record
“VIALL Icopated form of the saint-name VIALLEj Vital, Lat. Vitalis [Lat. vital-is, of life, vital ; f. vita, life] Vitalis de Engayne. — Testa de Nevill.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)