Frequency: (1933)
(number of times this surname appears in a sample database of 88.7 million names, representing one third of the 1997 US population)
1. Italian: from farina ‘wheat flour’ (Latin farina), a metonymic occupational name for a miller or flour merchant. In some cases it may also have been a nickname for someone with a pale complexion.
2. Galician and Asturian-Leonese (Fariña): from Galician and Asturian-Leonese fariña ‘wheat flour’ (Latin farina; compare 1).
3. possibly also Catalan: from farina ‘flour’ (from Latin farina; compare 1).
See the Key to the Dictionary or consult the General Introduction for further explanation.
