Juan Hernandez

(male) (Spanish) form of John, now also used as a given name in English-speaking countries, in spite of the unfavourable associations with Don Juan, the heartless seducer of Mozart's opera Don Giovanni (1788) and libertine hero of Byron's satirical epic (1819–24).

Spanish (Hernández) and Jewish (Sephardic): patronymic from the personal name Hernando (see Fernando). This surname also became established in southern Italy, mainly in Naples and Palermo, since the period of Spanish dominance there, and as a result of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal at the end of the 15th century, many of whom moved to Italy.