Llanes
A surname with Spanish roots, most likely taken from the place name Llanes in Asturias.
The #7,888 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 73,563 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Llanes is most likely a habitational surname, originally meaning someone from Llanes, a town and municipality in Asturias, northern Spain. The place-name is generally connected with the Spanish/asturian root llano, meaning “plain” or “flat land,” though the exact formation of the local name is not always explained in detail in older surname books. As a surname, it would have identified a person by origin rather than by family line at first.
History
The surname is found in Spanish-speaking records and later in the Americas, where many Iberian locational surnames spread through migration. The supplied historical excerpts do not give a direct etymology, but they do show the name being noticed alongside other surnames in 19th-century reference works. In modern usage it remains relatively uncommon in the United States.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Llanes is also the name of a well-known coastal town in Asturias, which makes the surname feel a bit like a built-in map pin.
From the historical record
“On leaving our houses, we meet and converse with Messrs. Street, Delarue, Rhoades, Rohde, Lane, Llanes, Alley, Way, Dillaway, Hadaway, Hatha- way and Hatheway, Hemenway, Hemmenway, and Heminway, Holway, Hookway, Magilloway, Ord- way, Otterway, Ridgway ; Pons (" a bridge "), Bridge, Bridges, Bain bridge…”
— Suffolk Surnames (3rd ed.)