Hernandez Family History
Hernandez Name Meaning
Spanish (Hernández): patronymic from the personal name Hernando (see Fernando ). The surname has also been established in southern Italy mainly in Naples and Palermo since the period of Spanish dominance there. Hernandez (including in the sense 2 below) is the eleventh most frequent surname in the US. Compare De Hernandez . 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