Description
The name that means “son of Pedro” — the 8th most common surname in Spain, and back-to-back with Lee in the American top 25.
PÉREZ: A Surname History is the twenty-sixth volume of Tamara Gribble’s beloved coffee-table series on the stories behind family names — a richly illustrated journey through one of the great Spanish patronymics: the medieval -ez formation, “son of Pero,” a pet form of Pedro — Pedro being the Spanish form of Peter. Born in the northern kingdoms of Spain during the Reconquista, the name took root across the peninsula and crossed the oceans with the great migrations, joining six other -ez patronymics already in the series: Rodríguez, Martínez, Hernández, López, González, Fernández.
In the United States, Pérez ranked #22 in the 2010 Census with 681,645 bearers — and with 92.95% Hispanic, one of the most Hispanic-concentrated names in the top 25. In a genuine series echo, the preceding volume’s name, Lee, was #21 (693,023) in the same Census file — back-to-back volumes, back-to-back ranks. In Spain itself the name stands even higher: the 8th most common surname in the country. Trace it from the -ez heartland of northern Spain — Galicia, Asturias, León, Castile — across the Atlantic to Latin America and the U.S. Southwest, and across the Pacific to the Philippines.
The signature story is Antonio Pérez (1540–1611), Philip II’s fallen minister — told honestly: implicated in the 1578 assassination of Juan de Escobedo, arrested, tortured, and convicted of treason, then fled to Aragon, where his case helped ignite the Alterations of Aragon of 1591, a genuine constitutional crisis — illustrated with the verified 1796 engraving by Alegre and Carmona, after Ximeno, from the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. Three heraldic plates — drawn from the printed pages of Rietstap’s Armorial général (1884–1887) — carry the series’ standing rule: these are the designated arms of three lineages, Pérez de Moreno, Pérez de Fariza, and Pérez-Seoane, Count of Velle — never “the Pérez coat of arms,” which does not exist. The gallery gathers fifteen remarkable bearers: Dámaso Pérez Prado, the Mambo King; Rubby Pérez, the Dominican merengue star; Víctor “Young” Pérez, the world flyweight champion; José Joaquín Pérez, president of Chile; Pitbull, Rosie Perez, Tony Pérez, Salvador Pérez, Florentino Pérez, and more — plus the places that carry the name, from Perez, Quezon in the Philippines to Pérez Zeledón, Costa Rica, home of the country’s highest peak, Cerro Chirripó.
With its signature black-and-gold design, museum-plate portraits, and the honest method readers trust — what couldn’t be verified isn’t in the book — Pérez is a keepsake for everyone who bears the name, past, present, and future.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.