Miranda Family History

Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian: habitational name from any of numerous places in Spain, Portugal, and Italy named Miranda. The placename is of ultimate Latin origin, a cognate of 2 below. This surname is also found in western India, where it was taken by Portuguese colonists. Compare De Miranda.

French (southern): habitational name from Miranda, the name of several minor places in Pyrénées-Atlantiques in the southwestern part of France, or a topographic name from Old Occitan miranda ‘lookout point, watchtower’.

Italian: from the female personal name Miranda, feminine of Mirando.

Jewish (Sephardic): adoption of the Iberian surname (see 1 above) at the moment of conversion to Roman Catholicism. After the return to Judaism (generations later), some descendants retained the name their families used as Catholics.