Genealogy

[perezlu.]

I´ve been searching some interesting information about my family name, "Pérez", and after looking for it in several webs Ifound the following facts:
Fists of all, practically all of the authors agree with each others in the origin, the surname Perez is of Spanish origin and means “son of Pedro.” Pedro is the Spanish equivalent of the name Peter, which means “rock", curious, isn´t it? I didn´t belive my surname is so strong.
But there is a branch of autors who consider the origin of this surname could also be a variation of the Sephardic Jewish surname, Peretz. Peretz means “bursting forth,” and was borne by one of Jacob’s grandsons in the Old Testament.In the Sephardic tradition, Perez can be traced back to the 14th century in Spain, to a group of Iberian-born Jews who converted to Christianity.
Is not less interesting, and sure funny, the theory in base of which this surname may possibly be derived from the name of the pear tree, "peral."

There are a lot of people on the web with my surname, not only in Spain, where it is one of the most common surname, but even in the rest of the world are a many "descendents of Peter", so in my search I discover that Perez is as common surname as in the United States, ranked at number 44 on the list of most common surnames. The highest concentration of people with this last name is in California, followed closely by Texas, Florida and New York. Within California, Perez ranks as the 11th most common surname.In Argentina, Perez is the 7th most common surname, and in France, the 69th.
Although when I tried to find someone whit my name and my surnames the results obtained decreased, in spite of it is a very common name and surnames, I can´t find anyone named exactly as me, there are a lot of people with my name but with other surname, and people with one of my surnames but not with the other.

[Núria]

I have no notice about my family name's origin but Magrans has the "root" of pomegranate so I think that this fruit is the origin of my surname. In my family, we do not have any documentation respect the origin of my surname; only the heraldry of my family name says that there are two golden towers about a blue background.
Ihave found my name on the web and there is only one Nuria but no other Magrans on it...It's quite unusual surname, of course.
Pérez or Martínez are the most common surnames in Spain and they have a lot of pages on Internet to obtain information.

[ÍNGRID CASAS]

Interesting facts about my family name:

• According to the information on some Web pages, Casas is not only common in Catalonia, but also in Galicia, Canary Islands, Extremadura, Andalusia, Aragon and Majorca.

• Casas has a medieval origin. It comes from two French Knights, Guillén and Bartolomé de Casaus, who came to Spain to serve the king Fernando III.

• Casas as a surname means a country house.

• We can see a different heraldry in each Web page, so I can’t trust anyone!

• On the Internet there are lots of first names with my family name. Nevertheless, the most common are José María, Mercedes, Diego, Pedro, Carlos and Clara, among others and I can’t find anybody with the same name as me!

• Did you know that only in a Web page there are more than 13 books with information about my family name? It’s amazing! Isn’t it?