Updated June 9, 2019

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Family name origins & meanings

  • French : topographic name for someone who lived near the gates of a fortified town (and often was in charge of them; thus in part a metonymic occupational name), from Old French porte ‘gateway’, ‘entrance’ (from Latin porta, ‘door’, ‘entrance’), with the definite article la. In French Canada it is a secondary surname, which has also been used alone since 1670.