Fernández

surname · Latin script

Meaning: a surname, Fernandez, originating as a patronymic

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Fernández is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Spain than in any other country, where it is the 6th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • UYUruguay1 in 27(measured from records)
  • ESSpain1 in 56
  • CRCosta Rica1 in 81

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Spain (measured from records)

896,725 people

#73 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

5 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
535 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 27 (inferred from the name graph)

Uruguay

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

FernándezLatin(measured from records)
ФернандесCyrillic(measured from records)
เฟอร์นันเดสThai(measured from records)
ფერნანდესიGeorgian(measured from records)
페르난데스Hangul(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Fernandez in AR Argentina, US United States, ES Spain and 4 more.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

a surname, Fernandez, originating as a patronymic

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Fernández counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Fernández is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
ES Spain#6896,7251 in 56897KFernandez324
AR Argentina#3520,7131 in 87521KFernandez197
PH Philippines#10≈290,000 est.≈1 in 372—Fernandez181
US United States#109180,8421 in 1.8K185KFernandez535
VE Venezuela#20≈180,000 est.≈1 in 1601.3KFernandez120
UY Uruguay#3123,8661 in 27124KFernandez131
PY Paraguay#9≈71,000 est.≈1 in 101—Fernandez85
CR Costa Rica#24662,8071 in 8163KFernández140

896,725 people counted by INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos). Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); asosab — SAIME ID-card names (1896–1996); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Fernández is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name21 spellings in the group

    Also written Fernandez, Fernandèz, Fern-Andez, Fernăndez, Férnandez

  • French surname12 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Philippines, Spain

    Languages: French, Catalan

    Also written Fernandez, Fernàndez, Ferñandez, FernÃndez, Férnandez

  • Croatian surname39 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Spain, United States, Philippines, Peru

    Languages: Croatian, Bulgarian, Serbian

    Also written Fernandez, Fernandes, Фернандес, Фернандез, FernÃndez

64 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

1000120014001600180020002200Alfonso VI of León and Castile, b. 1040Leonel Fernández, b. 1953Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, b. 1953Alberto Fernández, b. 1959Cote de Pablo, b. 1979Iker Casillas Fernández, b. 1981Javier Saviola, b. 1981Laura Fernández Delgado, b. 1986Denís Suárez, b. 1994Enzo Fernández, b. 2001

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 19 sources across 14 countries.

Reference works 3

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Fernández mean, and where does it come from?
a surname, Fernandez, originating as a patronymic Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
In which country does Fernández have the most bearers?
In Spain, the national register counted about 897 thousand people named Fernández, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled fernandez.
Where is Fernández most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Fernández is densest in Uruguay — about 1 in 27 people — even though Spain holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Fernández?
In Spain, the national register counted 896,725 people named Fernández, about 1 in 56 residents.
How common is Fernández compared with other names?
In Spain, Fernández is the 6th most common surname of 395,154 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Fernández?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/fern%C3%A1ndez

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Fernández” — the 6th most common surname in Spain. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Fernández parses inside a full name →