Maestas
A Hispanic surname most likely linked to the Spanish word for “majesty” or as a name of reverence and honor.
The #4,287 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 37,216 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Maestas is a Spanish-language surname, probably connected with the word maestas, an older form related to majestad, meaning “majesty.” In surname formation, such words often became family names as honorific or descriptive bynames, especially in Spanish-speaking regions. The exact path from the word to the surname is not fully certain, but the form is clearly Iberian and Romance in character.
History
The surname is best known today in the American Southwest, where many Hispanic surnames of Spanish colonial origin became established over generations. Its modern distribution suggests long use in New Mexico and neighboring regions, though the name is not especially common overall. Because there are no excerpted dictionary entries here, this remains a cautious general etymological explanation rather than a documented one-line derivation.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Maestas is relatively uncommon nationally, but it is much more recognizable in New Mexico than the U.S. rank alone suggests.