Rada Family History

Spanish and Catalan: topographic name from rada ‘natural bay’. Spanish and Catalan: habitational name from places called Rada (Cantabria), Rada de Haro (Cuenca), La Rada (Albacete, Cuenca) or Rada de Moraira (Alacant), or from a Castilianized variant of Basque Arrada, habitational name from a place called Arrada in Navarre. Czech: from a short form of any of several Slavic personal names containing the first element rad- ‘glad’, ‘merry’, in particular Radoslav, in which the second element means ‘glory’, and Radomir, in which the second element means ‘great’, ‘famous’. Hungarian: from the old secular personal name Rada or Ráda, of Slavic origin.

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press