Mejía (surname)

The seal of the Mejía Canton in Northern Ecuador.

Mejía is a Spanish surname. Several theories exist as to its origins and etymology. The prevailing belief is that the name has Galician origins. The surname is most common in Spain and Latin American countries, including Colombia and Mexico.

Etymology

The surname may have originated as a toponym for the town of Muxia in Galicia, an autonomous community in north-western Spain.^[3][4] Another idea is that the word "Mexia" used to mean "medicine" in an old variant of Spanish, and that this is where the surname came from.

One common belief is that the name may have Sephardic origins, from when the Spanish Kingdom forced Jewish settlers to change their surname to Castillian. The translation of the surname for "Messiah" would then become the name "Mesía".^[5] However, the Spanish people who travelled to the Spanish colonies in South America were not allowed to be Jewish or to have any Jewish or Muslim ancestors, and thus this explanation may not account for the popularity of the surname in modern-day Latin America.

Note that Mexía is the older Spanish spelling of the name. In the modern orthography of Spain, the spelling is Mejía, though in Mexico the older orthography is still considered correct. (Similarly, until recently Spaniards rendered the country name Méjico rather than México, though this has reversed in recent decades out of deference to Mexico).

Popularity in Colombia

The surname is a popular last name in Colombia, especially its Paisa region. According to the book "Genealogies of Antioquia and Caldas" by Gabriel Arango Mejía, the first Spaniard to bring the name to Colombia was a man named Don Juan Mejía de Tobar Montoya.^[6]

People

References