Solares
A Spanish surname likely tied to a family seat or ancestral homestead, from solar meaning a house plot or noble estate.
The #8,629 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 80,993 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Solares is connected with Spanish solar, a word used in medieval documents for a plot of ground, homestead, or ancestral house seat. The plural form can point to people associated with more than one such holding, or to a family identified by its lands. In older Iberian usage, a solar was especially associated with hereditary property and noble residence.
History
The excerpts show solar being used in medieval charters and later writers discussing noble lineages and their solares in northern Spain, especially Biscay and nearby regions. As a surname, Solares is likely to have arisen from a place-name or from association with a family estate rather than from an occupational meaning. The modern surname is relatively uncommon in the United States, but it fits a long Spanish naming pattern based on landholding and local origin.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
In medieval Iberia, a solar could mean more than just “sunny place”: it often referred to the ancestral house or landed seat of a noble family.
From the historical record
“guos documentos. La siguiente escritura, que copiamos del becerro de Santa María de Puerto (Santoña), país clásico de solares nobiliarios , nos ensena lo que allí se entendía ix)r solar. La data es de 1203 : «Ego domna Sancia do et offero meum solare que ego habeo in villa de Escalante in loco prenominato in Corera”
— Ensayo histórico etimológico filológico sobre los apellidos castellanos