Mendez surname meaning

Mendez is the unaccented US spelling of Méndez, a Galician-Spanish patronymic meaning “son of Mendo.” The -ez ending marks descent from a given-name ancestor, while Mendo and Menendo are medieval personal-name forms with older Iberian and Germanic layers behind them. Mendes is a neighboring Portuguese or Galician form, and Menéndez uses a related expanded personal-name base. Accents are frequently omitted in US records, so Mendez and Méndez should not be assigned different meanings on spelling alone. The secure surname-level reading is relationship-based: descent from someone called Mendo or a related form. Parent’s name is high confidence.