Vara Family History

Galician, Asturian-Leonese, and Spanish: habitational name from Vara (Galicia), Vara del Rey (Cuenca), or La Vara (Asturias). Compare De la Vara.

Portuguese and Spanish: from vara ‘rod, stick, yardstick’ (from Late Latin vara ‘forked stick’) applied as a nickname or a metonymic occupational name in any of various possible senses; it may have been given to a keeper of animals who used a stick to urge his charges on or to an official who was responsible for checking weights and measures or who carried a rod as a symbol of his office.

Italian (Sicily): either of Spanish origin (see 2 above) or alternatively a nickname or a metonymic occupational name from Sicilian vara ‘large board decorated with images of saints used for processions’, also ‘coffin’.