Diaz Family Name
Diaz
Meaning	"Son of Jacob"
Region of origin	Spain
Related names	Díaz (diacritical form), Dias
Popularity	Behind the Name
Wikipedia articles	All pages beginning with Diaz

Diaz (or Díaz) is a common Spanish surname meaning "Son of Jacob".^{[citation needed]} The name accounts for ~0.74% of the Spanish population, ranking 14th most frequently found surname in both 1999 and 2004 (Mateos & Tucker 2008, OcioTotal 1999). Compare this to the most popular Spanish surname of those years, Garcia, which accounted for ~3.48% of the population.

Variants and related names

There is minor evidence that Díez may be equivalent to Díaz, in the form of Spanish language listing of most frequent surnames in 1999 Spain (OcioTotal 1999). However, a 2008 in-press academic manuscript about Spanish naming in 2004 suggests otherwise, listing statistics for "Diaz" and "Diez" separately (Mateos & Tucker 2008).

In relation to descent from the Biblical names James and Jacob, it has been surmised that Diaz is a corruption of Diego from Iago (Smith 1986). A second source suggests Diaz as being derived from a Gothic form of the paternal genitive of Dia, as in "Dia's child", or Diag, Diago or Diego (Dixon 1857).

Usage

Diaz and the diacritical form Díaz appear to be surnames only, without evidence for use as given names. Use of Diaz may arise through Anglicization of Dias, as in the case of Bartolomeu Dias, born c. 1450.^{[citation needed]}

There is at least one instance of use as a single name, the former Norwegian rap artist Diaz (b. 1976 Norway), who was born to a Spanish father and Norwegian mother; his birth name was "Andres Rafael Diaz Rosa".^{[citation needed]}

Frequency

In Latin America, the diacritical form Díaz was among the top 25% of surnames in use based on a study conducted in 1987 by the Institute for Genealogy and History for Latin America (De Platt 1996, pages 31–32).

Spanish surnames, including Diaz, are found more abundantly in Southern Italy than other non-Italian surnames as a result of the domination of Italy by Spain during the 17^th Century (Fucilla 1949).

The following matrix contains available information on the frequency of this surname in various countries across a span of years.

Country	1880–1889	1960–1969	1990–1999	2000–2009
Australia				2002: 0.008% (rank ?)(c)
New Zealand				2002: 0.002% (rank ?)(c)
Spain			1999: 0.74% (rank 14)(a)	2004: na% (rank 14)(b)
United Kingdom	1881: na% (rank 23,037)(c)		1998: 0.001% (rank 10,773)(c)
United States		1964: 0.047% (rank 335)[1]	1990: 0.084% (rank 99)(d) 1990: 0.014% (rank ?)(c)	2000: 0.18% (rank 73)(d)

Reference codes, see #References: (a)=OcioTotal 1999, (b)=Mateos & Tucker 2008, (c)=Longley, et al., (d)=United States Census Bureau 1995, (e)=United States Census Bureau 2000

Several assessed countries have shown no instances of this surname, among these being Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland and Scotland (Bowie 2003; Longley, et al.).

Transliteration

It has been noted that Diaz may be subject to transcription errors and mistaken as Eliaz, which may subsequently be equated with Heliaz, in manuscripts dating from the 15^th Century, the same holding true for Dias, Elias and Helias (Carr 1999).

Notable people sharing the surname Diaz or Díaz

Owing to the common nature of this surname, there are many notable people who share it. Among the most notable from that throng are

• El Cid (11^th Century), born Rodrigo Díaz, conquerer and subsequent ruler of Valencia, Spain
• Bartholomew Diaz (15^th Century), the anglicized form of the name, who was the first European known to have sailed around the Western tip of Africa
• Bernal Díaz del Castillo (16^th Century), who provided an eye witness narrative for the destruction of the Aztec Empire by Spanish conquistadors
• José E. Díaz (19^th Century), hero of the War of the Triple Alliance and appearing on the 100 Paraguayan guaraní coin
• Porfirio Díaz (19^th Century), President of Mexico following the French intervention in Mexico
• Gloria Diaz (20^th Century), the first Filipino to bring home the Miss Universe crown.
• Matthew Diaz (20^th Century), American military lawyer responsible for the release of the identities of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to the Center for Constitutional Rights

See also

• Spanish naming customs

Notes

References

External links

• A history of the Díaz surname compiled by the Institute for Genealogy and History for Latin America is available for a fee. See pages 38 and 39 of http://books.google.com/books?id=xxcSboo5KTAC for more information.

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Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; from the article "Diaz". Image Credit.

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