From Latin vitalis meaning 'life' or 'vital,' used as both surname and given name.
Vidal traces its lineage to the Latin "vitalis," meaning "of life" or "vital" — a name that carries within it the fundamental assertion of existence itself. It entered Spanish and Catalan onomastics through the medieval Church, where Saint Vitalis of Milan was venerated as a martyr, and the name spread across the Iberian Peninsula and into France as "Vital" and "Vidal." Jewish Sephardic communities also embraced it warmly, and many prominent medieval Jewish scholars bore the name, embedding it in both Iberian Christian and Jewish cultural heritage simultaneously.
The 20th century gave Vidal two towering and very different bearers. Gore Vidal, the American writer and provocateur (1925–2012), wore the name like a challenge — his essays, novels, and public feuds with Norman Mailer and William F. Buckley made him one of the most distinctive literary voices of his era.
Meanwhile, Vidal Sassoon, the London-born hairdresser and entrepreneur (1928–2012), built a global empire from a Whitechapel barber's chair, democratizing beauty and putting his name on every drugstore shelf on earth. Two men named Vidal who could hardly have inhabited more different worlds — and yet both synonymous with a kind of sharp, transformative craft. Vidal remains far more common as a surname than a given name in English-speaking countries, which gives it a pleasingly understated, surname-forward energy when used as a first name. In Spanish-speaking communities it has never entirely disappeared, carrying its quiet Latinate affirmation of life with calm dignity.