What is the origin of the surname Cairo?

Question:

What is the origin of the surname Cairo?

Is it Spanish? Does it have anything to do with Cairo, Egypt?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: It's not relegated to a single country, primarily because the Mediterranean was such a fluid area for so many centuries (no pun intended). Sailors and soldiers routinely landed here, landed there, settled here, resettled there, and there wasn't much to distinguish one from the other. There are several places in the Mediterranean where the name Cairo belongs to a town or a village. There's just as many incidents of a man from Cairo resettling in another country and being referred to as "de Cairo" or "di Cairo", but it just evolved into a surname.

Is there a single source for the surname? No, it's found in too many disparate countries for that to be true, regardless of what the "look what we can sell you about your surname" sites would have you believe. The surname has many origins and most of them revolve around coastal areas of the Mediterranean...which means Spain, France, North Africa, Greece, Turkey, Italy, the Near East and yes, Egypt. If you're unsure, check the international phone registries at Infobel.com and see just how many times it comes up across the Mediterranean basin.