Fernando
A Spanish and Italian surname taken from the given name Fernando, ultimately the same name as Ferdinand.
The #6,123 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 55,173 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname comes from the personal name Fernando, which is the Spanish and Italian form corresponding to Ferdinand. In surname use, it is a patronymic or family-name formation: it originally identified someone as the child or descendant of a man named Fernando. The deeper roots of the forename are Germanic, but the surname itself is formed through the Romance given name.
History
The historical sources explicitly gloss Fernando as the given-name source of Fernandez, confirming its use as a family name derived from a forename. As a surname, it is found in Spanish- and Italian-language naming traditions, though it is much less common than the patronymic Fernandez. Modern bearers in the US may reflect Hispanic, Italian, or other immigrant naming lines where the surname or a simplified form of a larger patronymic was adopted.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The related surname Fernandez literally means “son of Fernando.”
From the historical record
“FERDINANDOl (Span, and Ital.) see Fer- FERNANDO J dinand in Diet. FERNANDEZ (Span.) genit. of Fernando. FINK (Ger.) Finch [O.H.Ger. fincho = Dan.- Norw. finke'\ FINKLER (Ger.) Bird-Catcher, Fowler [f. Fink]”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)