Place

Parra surname meaning

A Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, and Galician topographic or habitational name from parra, “vine bower” or “trellis.”

Confidence: High
US frequency: Rank 951 · 36,137 people
Common variants: Parra, De la Parra, De Parra, Parras

The short story

Parra is a Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, and Galician surname from parra, “vine bower” or “trellis.” It began as a topographic name for someone who lived by a vine arbor, or as a habitational name from one of the Iberian places called Parra or La Parra. De la Parra is a related form that keeps the preposition. Dictionary sources treat the vine-trellis sense as the shared Iberian core across those languages. Place is high confidence for that topographic and habitational explanation; Sephardic and other family histories may share the spelling without changing the underlying place-word origin.

Also seen as: Parra, De la Parra, De Parra, Parras

Sources used

Ancestry / DAFN entry for Parra (parra ‘vine bower, trellis’; places named Parra)
FamilySearch surname entry for Parra (same Iberian topographic/habitational gloss)
Names2020_LastNames_RaceHispanic_Top1000.xlsx (2020 Census)