One ending tells you the name is a patronymic and roughly a thousand years old; the order of two surnames tells you which parent each came from; and a whole regional stock names houses rather than people.
Here are fifty of the most common, and the rules that make them readable.
First: Which Surname Are You Actually Tracing?
Spanish-speakers traditionally carry two surnames: the father's first, the mother's second.
So in María López Hernández, López is the paternal surname and the one she is filed under; Hernández came from her mother.
Two warnings follow. English-language records routinely treat the last word as the surname, filing her under Hernández — which is wrong, and which splits families across indexes. And this is the reverse of the Portuguese convention, where the paternal name comes last. Mixing the two up is the commonest error in Iberian research.
In Catalan the two are traditionally joined by i: Josep Puig i Cadafalch.
The -ez Ending: "Son Of"
The largest group by far, and the oldest. The -ez ending (also -es, -iz, -oz, -az) is a patronymic, documented in León and Castile from around the tenth century. Strip it and you have the father's given name.
- Rodríguez — son of Rodrigo.
- González — of Gonzalo.
- Fernández — of Fernando. Hernández is the same name with the Castilian f→h shift.
- López — of Lope, from Latin lupus, wolf.
- Martínez — of Martín.
- Sánchez — of Sancho.
- Pérez — of Pedro.
- Gómez — of Gome, an old Germanic name.
- Jiménez — of Jimeno, a Basque-Navarrese name.
- Álvarez — of Álvaro.
- Gutiérrez — of Gutierre.
- Domínguez — of Domingo.
- Vázquez — of Vasco, "the Basque".
- Ramírez — of Ramiro.
- Suárez — of Suero.
- Núñez — of Nuño.
- Díaz — of Diego.
- Ordóñez — of Ordoño. Velázquez — of Velasco. Benítez — of Benito. Enríquez — of Enrique.
García, the most common surname in Spain, is the exception: it is a Basque given name of uncertain meaning, old enough that it became a surname without taking the -ez at all.
Names From a Place or the Land
- Vega — a fertile river plain. Rivera / Ribera — riverbank. Del Río — of the river.
- Serrano — of the sierra, the highlands. Montes, Peña (rock), Valle, Prado (meadow), Soto (grove), Campos.
- Robles (oaks), Pinar (pine wood), Encinas (holm oaks), Olivares (olive groves).
- Molina — a mill. Castillo — a castle. Iglesias — churches. Torres — towers.
- Navarro (the Navarrese), Gallego (the Galician), Catalán, Aragón, Vizcaíno (the Biscayan), Castilla, Medina, Toledo, Sevilla.
Names From Appearance or Character
- Moreno — dark-complexioned. Prieto — dark. Rubio — blond. Blanco — white. Cano — grey-haired. Castaño — chestnut.
- Delgado — thin. Calvo — bald. Grande, Chico.
- Bravo — fierce. Cortés — courteous. Alegre — cheerful. Lozano — vigorous, good-looking.
Occupational Names
- Herrero and Ferrer (Catalan) — smith.
- Guerrero — warrior. Caballero — horseman, knight. Escudero — squire, shield-bearer.
- Pastor — shepherd. Vaquero — cowherd. Molinero — miller. Zapatero — shoemaker. Barbero — barber. Labrador — ploughman.
- Garrido — handsome, and also a term for a household retainer.
Religious Names
Santos, Cruz, De Jesús, Trinidad, Concepción, Sacramento, Espíritu Santo, De la Cruz.
These were frequently given at baptism to foundlings and orphans, and were also adopted at conversion. They are common in Spain and far more common in Latin America and the Philippines.
Basque Surnames: the House, Not the Person
The most distinctive Iberian stock, and structurally different from everything above: a Basque surname usually names the farmhouse — the baserri — and describes it.
- Etxeberria / Echeverría / Echevarría — etxe berria, "the new house". One of the commonest Basque surnames, and the origin of the Spanish-American Echeverría and the Irish-sounding Cheverry.
- Etxebarria, Etxegoien — the same element with different qualifiers.
- Ibarra — the valley floor. Larrea — the pasture. Mendoza — mendi hotza, the cold mountain. Aguirre — an exposed, prominent place. Zabala — the broad place. Garay — the high place. Arrieta — the place of stones. Ugarte — between waters.
- Bilbao, Zubizarreta (the old bridge), Gorostiaga (the holly grove).
Because the name describes a house, Basque surnames are unusually precise: they frequently point at one specific farm, still standing, in one specific valley.
Catalan Surnames
A separate stock again: Puig (hill), Serra, Vila, Roca, Font (spring), Soler, Bosch (wood), Riera (stream), Pujol, Mas (farmstead), Vidal, Comas, Ferrer, Casals.
Latin America and the Philippines
Two things happened outside Spain that change how these names should be read.
Indigenous surnames survive in large numbers, particularly in the Andes and Mesoamerica: Quispe, Mamani, Huamán, Condori, Chambi (Quechua and Aymara); Chan, Canul, Uc, Pech, Dzul (Maya, in Yucatán); Nahuatl, Mapuche and Guaraní names elsewhere. Quispe and Mamani are among the most common surnames in Peru and Bolivia respectively.
And in the Philippines, Spanish surnames were assigned by decree. The Catálogo alfabético de apellidos of 1849 distributed a printed list of surnames — Spanish, and some Filipino and Chinese — among the population by province, largely for tax administration. This is why Filipino surnames look Spanish and why they cluster geographically: neighbouring towns were given adjacent pages of the alphabet.
A Spanish surname therefore does not imply Spanish descent. In the Philippines it usually does not.
About the Arms
Spain is one of the few European countries that retains an official heraldic function: the Cronista Rey de Armas certifies arms, and the tradition of the nobiliario — the published armorial — is long and rich.
The really substantial Spanish record, though, is legal. The pleitos de hidalguía — lawsuits brought to have noble status recognised, heard at the royal chanceries of Valladolid and Granada — generated enormous, detailed genealogical files, because proving descent was the entire point of the case. So did the expedientes de limpieza de sangre, the purity-of-blood investigations required for many offices.
Both are held in the Spanish state archives, catalogued by name, and both are far better evidence than any "family crest" catalogue.
And as everywhere: García, Rodríguez and López were adopted independently by enormous numbers of unrelated families. An armorial will list many distinct coats under each, which is the accurate answer.
Where to Look
- PARES — the Portal de Archivos Españoles, free, including the chancery lawsuits and the Inquisition records.
- Parish registers, required across Spain after the Council of Trent in 1563 and often continuous from then.
- The Registro Civil, from 1871 in Spain, with equivalents at various dates across Latin America.
- FamilySearch, which has digitised an enormous quantity of Latin American parish material.
- Padrones — municipal residence rolls, an under-used and often very detailed source.
What the Record Holds for Your Name
The Heritage Volume sets out what the historical record holds for a surname — where it comes from, what it meant, where its bearers were concentrated, and the arms associated with it. How Your Report Is Made explains which parts come from public records and which our system builds.
Display the arms in a framed coat of arms, or carry the crest on a signet ring.
