Description
Hernández means “son of Hernando” — and it was invented not once but thousands of times, by thousands of unrelated fathers who were all called Hernando.
From the medieval charters of Castile and León to the heartland of northern Spain, the name Hernández arose again and again: a polygenetic name with no single founding bloodline, now the most common surname in Mexico, the eleventh in Spain, the eleventh in the United States, and carried by more than nine million people worldwide.
This lavishly illustrated volume traces Hernández through eight chapters — the Hernandos who lent his name and the saint who spread it; the heartland of northern Spain and the families who proved their nobility there; the crossings that carried the name to the New World, from Francisco Hernández de Córdoba’s Yucatán expedition to the Bracero years; the signature story of José M. Hernández, the migrant farmworker’s son rejected by NASA eleven times who flew aboard Discovery on STS-128; the heraldry that belongs to particular lineages and never to all; a gallery of great bearers — the Argentine epic poet, the Spanish goatherd poet, Venezuela’s first saint, the Puerto Rican composer, the dancer who founded the Ballet Folklórico, a Medal of Honor hero, the civil-rights leader, and the astronaut; the curiosities, from the accent that vanished in the counting to the name that fills a million and a half Mexican identities twice; the towns that keep the name; and where the Hernández live today — more than nine million strong.
Printed in dramatic 8.5″ × 11″ large format, Hernández: A Surname History is the perfect gift for anyone who bears the name — past, present, and future — and for all those who love them.
The fourteenth volume in The Surname Histories Series by Tamara Gribble.
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