User-submitted Reference

Vitureira and the rest of similar names, Bitureira, Buitureira, Butureira, Boutureira, Voutureira or Bintureira are all galician names and related between them to the same origin.

The surname is related to the place name of Vitureira or A Vitureira. A couple of places with this name can be found in Galicia, Spain. One is in the province of Pontevedra, in O Porriño, and the other one is a village in the parish of Langueiron, Ponteceso, in A Coruña province.

Isidoro Millan Gonzalez-Pardo, in his work 'Toponimia de Ponteceso y su Municipio' states that the etimology of this name place is coming from the latin 'vulturaria', what would mean 'vultures nest'.

Then the surname would be given to the people who, coming from one of these placee, would move to other one nearby, therefore, being known in the new place as the one coming from Vitureira or Bitureira (spelling of the place name in the past centuries).

This surname can be found several times in the different documents related to the 1750's Catastro de la Ensenada, and mainly written with a 'B' and not with 'V' and with different mispellings, like Bintureira or Buitureira that have crossed the times and the oceans. The adoption of the V is coming from the 19th or 20th century in the spanish ortograph. Therefore, many of the B spelling can be found in the Americas, as consequence of the emigration of the galician surname bearers before the ortographic harmonization was done in Spain, whereas the majority of those bearing the surnames with a V can be found in Spain nowadays.