Where the Mendez name comes from

Mendez began as a patronymic in Spanish, marking the son of a man called Mendo, Menendo, Mendel or Mem. The build is simple: the personal name Mendo plus the Spanish ending -ez. Behind Mendo sits the Germanic name Hermenegild, which most likely reached Spain in the period the Visigoths ruled there. That older name joins ermen, meaning whole or immense, to gild, meaning sacrifice or treasure.

Melendez and Menendez are longer surnames grown from the same root, and Mendes is the Portuguese and Galician form. Mendez is common in Spain, Mexico and other countries in Latin America. It entered Tagalog and Cebuano through the Catalogo alfabetico de apellidos.