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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Italian (Sicily) : from Italian mallo ‘soft blanket’ (from Latin mallus ‘tuft of wool’, from Greek mallos ‘fleece’). Caracausi believes the surname may have arisen as a nickname for someone with curly hair.
  • Asturian-Leonese : habitational name from a place called Mallo in Lleón province, Northwest Spain (probably from mallo ‘threshing flail’, ‘mallet’, or, alternatively, though less likely, from a pre-Roman territorial name).

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