2879: The Dominance of ‘-ez’ in Spanish Surnames Nov 8, 2024

Out of the top 20 most common Spanish derived surnames, almost every single one ends with ‘-ez’ (or ‘-es’, a regional variant, and ‘-iz’ / ‘-oz’ as a phonotactic variant), like Lopez, Martinez, and Gonzalez, but it’s not entirely clear how the practice became so common. In most cases, the name is patronymic, with names like Hernandez from [child of] Hernando, though many others morphed like Perez from Pedro or Diaz from Diego. Gonzalez is actually from a Germanic, Visigoth origin, from ‘gunþo’ meaning “army / war elf” (see more on elf-based names in Germanic cultures), and related to Gunther and Gunnar. Cortez is not patronymic, and means ‘courteous’.

In general, many of the names that led to these surnames are no longer so popular, but offer a snapshot to a time when they were. The ‘-ez’ suffix possibly developed out of the genitive form in Latin, meaning “of [name]” but this progression is not clear looking at Medieval Spanish. It could be related to an instrumental suffix from Basque, or another pre-Roman language, but this is also difficult to evidence.