Portuguese last names, on the other hand, would have the suffixes “es”, “as”, “is”, or “os”. These suffixes meant “son of”, and would be added to the end of a Spanish surname. However, over time these names had suffixes added to them like “ez”, “is” and “oz”. Sometimes, a parent’s name would be used as is – hence, Hispanic people with the surnames “Alonso” and “Vincente”. Using these two surnames began as a way to distinguish between two men who had the same name, by using the first name of the father (patronym) and the first name of the mother (matronym).

Keep this in mind when looking up the names of ancestors before the 19th century! However, this Castilian double last name convention did not exist in Hispanic nations until the 16th century and was not in consistent use in Hispanic populations until the early 19th century. Daughters would take a mother’s surname, while a son would take their father’s last name. Many centuries ago, Hispanic naming patterns varied greatly. This explains why spouses would have separate sets of double surnames from their son. They would also simply append their husbands’ last names using “de” between these two names.

That son’s name would be “Fernando Nunez Garcia”.Īs a result of these naming conventions, women would add the surnames of their husbands to the end of their surnames. For example, let’s say a father named Diego Nunez Recio who is married to Juana Garcia Pelaez has a son named Fernando. This is a last name convention that dates its existence to Spain’s Castilian aristocracy during the 16th century.Ī census of a Hispanic country will reveal that people take the first of their father’s two surnames and the first of their mother’s two surnames as a last name. Known as “apellido” in Spanish, nowadays people who live in countries with Hispanic surnames will have two surnames.

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