Caruso Family History

Italian: nickname from caruso ‘close-cropped’ (from Latin cariosus ‘decayed’ also ‘smooth bald’). This word was also used in the more general sense ‘boy lad’ since in the Middle Ages young men of fashion sometimes wore their hair much shorter than was the prevailing style.

In the Girgenti area of Sicily the term was a metonymic occupational name for a worker in the sulfur pits since such workers were required to wear their hair short.