Where the Esposito surname comes from
Esposito comes from the Latin expositus, “exposed.” Its full meaning is “entrusted to the protection of the Madonna.” It was the surname given in Naples and Campania to children left in the care of the Church. The first Esposito in a family was, in all likelihood, a child taken in and raised by the city.
The revolving door of the Annunziata
In Naples the heart of this story is a wall of the Santissima Annunziata, with a revolving wooden door built into it. That’s where the story of your surname begins. The PDF explains how it worked, who the first Esposito on record was and which king one day changed the rules.
Where the Espositos live today
Esposito is Italy’s fourth most common surname, with about 35,600 families. It’s the surname of Campania: the most common in the region, in the province of Naples and in the city. Outside Campania you’ll find it mostly where people from Naples moved in the 1900s: Milan, Rome and Turin. The region-by-region map and the countries around the world they reached are in the PDF.
Variants
In other cities the children taken in were given different surnames, and the same word took several forms. The PDF explains where each one comes from.
| Surname | Where it is concentrated |
|---|---|
| Esposito | Campania, Lombardy, Lazio |
| Esposti | Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy, Tuscany |
| Esposto | Marche, Apulia, Lombardy |
| Degli Esposti | Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, Umbria |
| Sposito | Campania, Sicily, Lazio |
FAQ
What does the surname Esposito mean?
It comes from the Latin expositus, “exposed,” that is, entrusted to the protection of the Madonna. It was the surname given in Campania to children left in the care of the Church.
Is Esposito a Neapolitan surname?
Yes. It’s the most common surname in Campania, in the province of Naples and in the city. It reached the North and Rome mostly with 20th-century migration.
Is Esposito the surname of foundlings?
Yes, that’s how it began. In Naples the children taken in were called “children of the Madonna.” The surname was the city’s way of saying that the child belonged to everyone.
Are Esposito and Sposito the same surname?
Yes. Sposito is the shortened form, just as people said it out loud. Until the 1800s the surname was written by whoever kept the register, often the way they heard it spoken.
Are Esposito and Esposti the same surname?
They come from the same idea. Esposti and Degli Esposti were the foundlings’ surnames in Bologna and Emilia, Esposito the one in Campania. Other cities used Innocenti, Colombo or Casadei.
Are all Espositos related?
Almost never. Esposito was the surname of thousands of different children, each with a story of their own. To trace your own you need birth records and parish registers.
Is the Esposito surname noble?
No. It was the surname of the children taken in by the Annunziata hospital, that is, of people starting over from scratch.
Is there an Esposito family coat of arms?
No. A surname born among the children of the wheel never had a coat of arms. Anyone selling “the Esposito coat of arms” is selling an invention.
