Juan Santiago

(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).

Galician, Portuguese, and Spanish: habitational name from any of the numerous places named for the dedication of their churches to St. James (Sant Iago). The apostle St. James the Greater is the patron saint of Spain; there is a medieval legend that, after the death of Christ, he did not meet a speedy end under Herod Agrippa, but visited and evangelized the Iberian peninsula. His alleged burial site at Compostela has been a place of pilgrimage from all over Europe for over a thousand years.