Malave
A surname most likely of Spanish or Hispanic origin, probably tied to a place-name or an old regional family name.
The #6,434 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 58,497 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Malave is a Hispanic surname, but without a specific historical dictionary entry to anchor it, its exact origin is uncertain. The most likely explanation is that it developed as a locational or regional family name in the Spanish-speaking world, eventually becoming hereditary. In some cases surnames like this can also preserve an older place-name or a local nickname that no longer has a transparent modern meaning.
History
The surname is most familiar today in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and in Hispanic communities in the United States. Its modern distribution suggests a family line that spread from the Iberian or Caribbean world into the Americas, where the name became established as a hereditary surname. Because the name is not a common one in the major standard surname dictionaries, its deeper history is not well documented in a broad reference sense.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The accent mark in forms like Malabé may appear in some records, but many official documents drop accents, creating multiple spellings for the same family line.