Jacinto
A surname taken from the Spanish and Portuguese given name Jacinto, ultimately linked to the flower name hyacinth.
The #5,572 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 49,494 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Jacinto comes from the Iberian given name Jacinto, which is the Spanish and Portuguese form of Latin Hyacinthus. That Latin name was borrowed from Greek Hyakinthos, the name of a flower and a figure in Greek myth, and it came to be used as a personal name and then a surname. In surname form, it is usually a hereditary name taken from an ancestor's given name rather than a descriptive word.
History
The surname is most common in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking communities, where it developed from the long-standing personal name Jacinto. It also appears in the Philippines and in Latin American diaspora communities, reflecting Iberian naming traditions carried overseas. In English-language records it is often left unchanged from the original spelling.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Saint Hyacinth helped keep the underlying name popular in Christian Europe, even though the surname itself usually comes through the everyday given name Jacinto rather than directly from the saint’s cult.