FERNANDO GONZALEZ

(Spanish) A modern form of the old Spanish name Ferdinando, which is of Germanic (Visigothic) origin, from farð ‘journey’ (or possibly an altered form of frið ‘peace’) + nand ‘ready, prepared’. The name was hereditary in the royal families of Spain from an early date. It was borne by Ferdinand I (d. 1065) of Castile and Leon, who conducted successful campaigns against the Moors, and by his descendant Ferdinand V (1452–1516), who finally expelled the Moors from Spain altogether; he also gave financial backing to Columbus. Through the marriage in 1496 of his daughter Joan the Mad of Castile to the Habsburg Archduke Philip, the name Ferdinand also became hereditary in the Austrian imperial family. Their younger son, Ferdinand (1503–64), acquired the succession to the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia by marriage in 1521, and became Holy Roman Emperor in 1558. See Ferdinand.

Spanish (González): patronymic from the personal name Gonzalo, a personal name of Visigothic origin, based on the Germanic element gunþ ‘battle’. Compare Portuguese Gonçalves (see Goncalves).