Mesa
A Spanish surname that usually comes from the word for a table, or sometimes from a place called a mesa or plateau.
The #2,656 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 22,759 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Mesa is a Spanish surname with more than one possible source. In many cases it comes from Spanish mesa, meaning “table,” from Latin mensa; it could have begun as a nickname or house-name connected with a table or table-like object. In other cases it may be locational, referring to a mesa in the geographic sense: a flat-topped hill or plateau.
History
The surname is well established in Spanish-speaking regions and also appears in forms found in Portuguese and other Iberian records. Because both the everyday noun and the place-name sense are plausible, different family lines may not share the same origin. In modern times it is especially common in Latin America and among Hispanic families in the United States.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Spanish mesa can mean both a dining table and a flat-topped landform, so the same surname can point to either a household object or a landscape feature.
Notable people named Mesa
- Carlos Mesa (b. 1953)
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