Family name origins & meanings
- Catalan and Spanish : possibly from a truncated form of Catalan olives or Spanish olivas ‘olives’, presumably applied as a metonymic occupational name for someone who worked cultivating olive trees, or curing and selling olives.
- Greek : nickname from the livas (classical Greek lips), the sirocco, a hot dust-laden wind originating in Libya. Since this wind is hot, the term was probably a nickname denigrating someone’s temper.