Vila Family History

Catalan: topographic name for someone who lived in a vila (see 3 below) which in Catalonia denoted a small town or village with certain privileges not common for villages or a habitational name from any of the places called La Vila or Vila. This is one of the most common surnames in Catalonia.

Catalan (Vilà): variant of Vilar. Galician and Portuguese: habitational name from any of the very numerous places called Vila from vila ‘village, small town’ (from Latin villa ‘country house, estate’, later used of a group of houses forming a settlement).

Croatian, Serbian, and Bosniak: nickname from Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian vila ‘fairy’. Albanian: habitational name from Vilë (definite form Vila) the name of several villages in Albania.