Family name origins & meanings
- Finnish : topographic name from autio ‘uninhabited’, ‘abandoned’, denoting a farm or field that had fallen into disuse. In northern Finland the word means ‘spacious’, ‘wide’ and is a frequent place name; there are also farms so named in eastern areas, which gave rise to the surname. It spread to the south with the name conversion movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries.