Costa surname meaning

Costa is a widespread Romance surname—Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Galician, southern French, and Italian—from costa, ultimately Latin costa, “rib, side, flank,” used for a slope, riverbank, or seacoast. It may describe someone who lived on such ground or come from any of many places named Costa. Da Costa and Lacosta keep a preposition or article; Spanish Cuesta is a cognate topographic. Sephardic families sometimes retained Costa after conversion-era adoptions of Iberian surnames. Place is high confidence for the dominant topographic and habitational reading.