Fernandez Family History
Fernandez Name Meaning
Spanish (Fernández): patronymic from the personal name Fernando . The surname (and to a lesser extent the variant Hernandez ) has also been established in southern Italy mainly in Naples and Palermo since the period of Spanish dominance there. Jewish (Sephardic): adoption of the name in 1 above at the moment of conversion to Roman Catholicism. After the return to Judaism (generations later) some Jewish descendants retained the surname that their families had adopted as Roman Catholics.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022