CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Martinez, Garcia, Rivera. Do you ever wonder where your last name comes from? Latino last names stem from Spanish colonization of the Americas.
Last names also known as surnames date back to the middle ages and were meant to describe the person.
Dr. Christophe Landry works for Ancestry.com, genealogy company that uses historical records and DNA to trace your family roots.
According to Dr. Landry last names can come from five different categories: descriptive, occupational, patronymical, toponymical, and topographical.
Descriptive last names describe the person:
Delgado – Thin
Rubio – Blonde
Bueno – Good
Cortez – Courteous
Duran – describer enduring as quality
Occupational last names describe the persons job:
Cantu – coming from the word ‘cantor’ describing singer
Romero – Pilgrim
Guerra – Describing ‘war’ which could mean a soldier
Herrera – blacksmith or iron work
Toponymical last names describes the city or town the person was from:
Valencia – town in Spain
Guzman - town in Spain
Aguilar – town in Spain
Topographical last names describe the person by where they lived:
Del Monte – Mountains
Costa – Coast
Pena – Rock
Flores – Flowers
Iglesias – Church
Soto – Small wood
Salinas- salt mine
Meza – table or flat-topped hill
Ibarra – means valley or plain by the river in basque
Canales - Waterways
Patronymical last names come from the father and they usually end in ‘EZ’ and usually describe ‘son of’
Martinez – Son of Martin
Rodriguez – Son of Rodrigo
Perez – Son of Pedro
Benitez – Son of Benito
Ramirez – Son of Ramiro Hernandez – Son of Hernando
Gonzalez – Son of Gonzalo
Dr. Christian Roberto Walk with TAMU CC says it wasn't until Spanish colonization that Latin American countries started to see the use of Spanish last names including right here in South Texas.
“Of course later for a small period of time Texas would become its own republic and in the 1840s would become a part of the United State and that is why people, Mexican in those areas had Spanish last names that descend all the way back from original Spanish colonial conquest,” said Dr. Walk
Double or hyponated last names didn’t start to appear in Latin America until the Spanish started to bring that pattern which emerged in the 19th century.
Some last names derive from Spanish languages, such as Basque. The most common word used as a last name is Garcia – coming from the word ‘gartzea’ which means young.
Some last names have a spelling is a S or a Z – according to Dr. Landry, the spelling depends on the person who was writing it on documents at the time. It could have changed in the persons lifetime.
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