Palencia
A Spanish surname taken from the city of Palencia in north-central Spain.
The #9,959 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 95,262 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Palencia is a habitational surname, meaning it originally identified someone from the city of Palencia in Castile and León. The place name itself is generally traced back to the Roman-era name Pallantia or a related pre-Latin form, though the deeper origin is uncertain. In surname use, it simply means “from Palencia.”
History
The surname belongs to the broad Spanish pattern of adopting a place name as a family name. The historical excerpts supplied mention Palencia only as a Spanish place-name, not as a developed surname entry, so the evidence here supports a locational origin rather than a more specific family history. It is most likely to have arisen independently in more than one line among people who moved away from the city or were identified by it.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Palencia is also the name of a province as well as a historic city, so the surname could point to either local origin in the city or broader regional association.
From the historical record
“quence of General Leith being wounded, and took the direc- tion of the left of the army, at the moment when warmly engaged, both at Villa Morilla and Palencia. He continued to conduct that division during the remainder of the arduous retreat ; and after placing it, with little comparative loss, in cantonments on…”
— The Scottish Nation, vol. 3