11,829 CONTI members around the world

CONTI Family History

This famous surname recorded in the spellings of Comte, Conte and Conti, is of Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese origins. It derives from the Latin 'comptus' meaning 'order or control', and such in the Roman Empire it applied to officials of rank responsible for administering a small region. Later it was adopted as a major mark of nobility throughout much of Europe. Many holders of the surname do indeed have nobility in their blood, whilst others hold the title as a result of either being associated with title holders perhaps through being officials of the noble, or as a nickname for one who had noble aspirations, or possibly because ancestors played the role of a Count in the very popular medieval travelling theatres of the middle ages between the 10th and the 16th century in Europe...