Nava surname meaning

Nava is a Spanish, Catalan, and Asturian-Leonese habitational surname taken from any of the many places called Nava. The place-name uses nava, a pre-Roman word for a treeless plateau or open plain, most often linked to Basque naba, “plain next to mountains.” Families living at or near such a settlement could adopt the place as a hereditary surname. Navas, Naba, Navar, and Naves are related Iberian forms. The catalog uses place with high confidence because DAFN and matching Iberian sources agree on the habitational reading; the deeper Basque geography explains the word but does not change the surname type.