Costa (surname)

Costa (ˈkɔsta, ˈkɔʃtɐ, ˈkɔstɐ, ˈkɔstɐ, ˈkosta, ˈkɔstə, ˈkɔsta), sometimes Costas, da Costa, Da Costa, or Dalla Costa, is an Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Greek surname. The surname spread throughout the world through colonization. It is also a surname chosen by Jews and other religious groups due to Roman Catholic and other Christian conversions. In Italy, Portugal, Galicia and Catalonia it is derived from the Latin word costa, "rib", which has come to mean slope, coast, in Romance languages. In the rest of Spain it comes from Catalonia or from Galicia, being the Spanish equivalent Cuesta. As of 2014, 71.0% of all known bearers of the surname Costa were residents of Brazil (frequency 1:141), 7.6% of Portugal (1:67), 5.2% of Mozambique (1:255), 3.7% of Italy (1:801), 2.4% of the United States (1:7,460), 1.9% of Guinea-Bissau (1:44), 1.5% of Spain (1:1,531), 1.2% of East Timor (1:49) and 1.2% of Argentina (1:1,809).