Where the Cariello surname comes from
Scholars disagree about where Cariello comes from. There are two serious theories, both born from the everyday speech of ordinary people in the South.
The first leads to an old personal name, Carellus, an affectionate form used in the Middle Ages: Cariello would then mean “Carello’s son.” The second leads to the dialect word carriello, the “little cart”: a nickname for someone who built, drove or owned a cart. Either way, it is a surname born among the people of the Mezzogiorno.
A Cariello at the court of Naples
In the 1800s a Cariello born in a town near Salerno trained in Naples and went on to work for the king. His work took him from the Royal Mint to the Royal Palace, and today a major biographical dictionary gives him an entry. The PDF tells who he was, and which other Cariello carried the name all the way to Serie A.
Where the Cariello families live today
Cariello is a southern surname, and an uncommon one: about 2,100 people carry it in Italy. Its heart is southern Campania, above all the Salerno area, with a core around Naples. Alongside it stands a second old branch in Apulia, around Bari. The families in Tuscany, Lazio and Lombardy arrived with the migrations of the 1900s. The PDF has the region-by-region map and the countries around the world the Cariellos reached.
FAQ
What does the surname Cariello mean?
Its origin is debated. Some scholars trace it to Carellus, an old personal name from the Middle Ages. Others trace it to the dialect word carriello, the “little cart,” used as a nickname.
Is Cariello a surname from Campania or from Apulia?
Both. Its strongest core is in Campania, above all the Salerno area. The second, old and well established, is in Apulia, around Bari.
How old is the Cariello surname?
At least four centuries old. A “lo Cariello” already appears in a property inventory from 1609, in Solofra, in the province of Avellino.
Are all Cariellos related?
No. The people who carry the surname come from different families and branches. To trace your own family’s story, what matters is the family’s exact town, and you need birth records and parish registers.
Is the Cariello surname noble?
No. It has a folk origin, from an old name or a nickname of the Mezzogiorno. No old noble house is known to have carried the surname.
Is there a Cariello family coat of arms?
No. No documented family coat of arms is known for Cariello. The coats of arms sold online pair the name with a random coat of arms, with no tie to your family.
How many Cariellos are there in the world?
About 3,400, and more than half of them live in Italy. The others are mostly in the United States and Brazil: they descend from southern Italian emigrants of the 1800s and 1900s.
