Pardo (surname)

Pardo
Prado del Rey, Cadiz
Language(s) Spanish
Origin
Derivation from Prado, Castile, or Prado del Rey, Cadiz
Meaning Brownish grey
Other names
Anglicisation(s) Brown; Browne

Pardo is a family deriving its surname from Prado in Castile[1] or from Prado del Rey in the Province of Cádiz. The place-name Prado is derived from the Spanish word prado, which means meadow. As with the name Castro/Crasto, letters have become transposed.[2] The Spanish word pardo means brownish grey.[3]

Members of the Pardo family have mostly distinguished themselves in the Levant.[1]

The Pardo family which apparently originated in Prado del Rey flourished during the 16th–18th centuries in the Ottoman Empire, Italy, the Netherlands, England, and America. Many members of the family were scattered throughout North America, where they became known as Brown or Browne.[2]

The name belongs to Jewish people who settled in the Iberian Peninsula; and today in countries like Israel, Spain, Curaçao, Guatemala, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Argentina and Chile.

Traces of Jewish life are known in the Iberian Peninsula from the Romans, where those exiled Jews of Jerusalem were already in those territories, including those dubbed Pardus by the Romans themselves; however we must go back to the years after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1492), and afterwards from Portugal (1496). This diaspora within the diaspora, which gave rise to the Sephardim, led many to settle in cities in the Ottoman Empire, in many cases sponsored by the same authorities of the empire that not only were welcoming this group of immigrants, but also preferred installation in areas that had been conquered not long ago and where they wanted to strengthen its sovereignty. This name is after the various persecutions spread by the Catholic Monarchs; many Jews were forced to leave Spain and emigrated to territories of Europe including Thessalonica, Bitola (city of ancient Republic of Macedonia), Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Serbia, and Bosnia, and after the conquest of the Americas, the new Spanish colonies. However, persecution later continued in the colonies under the Court of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Today this name is very common among Sephardim in Israel; other common surnames are Levy, Sarfati, Cohen, Ovadia, Albalak, Azulai, and Pinto.

Notable people with the surname

References

  1. 1 2  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Pardo". Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company. Retrieved December 18, 2013.
  2. 1 2 "The Pardo (Prado) Family". 1999. Retrieved Oct 2, 2015.
  3. ↑ "pardo". www.spanishcentral.com. Retrieved Oct 2, 2015.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.