Sephardic & Jewish Surnames
A guide to Sephardic and Spanish-Portuguese Jewish surnames with converso roots. Check whether your last name points to hidden Jewish ancestry.
Many families across Latin America, Spain, and Portugal carry a surname that quietly preserves a Jewish past. After the forced conversions of 1391 and the expulsion of 1492, thousands of Sephardic Jews adopted Christian names — and some of those surnames are still with us today. A surname alone doesn't prove Jewish ancestry, but it can be the first thread to pull.
What makes a surname Sephardic?
There is no closed, definitive list of «Jewish surnames.» Sephardim, like everyone else on the Iberian Peninsula, drew their names from several sources: a place of origin (Toledano, from Toledo; Cordovero, from Córdoba; Laguna; Sevilla), a trade, a trait, or the father's name. What changed after 1391, and above all in 1492 and 1497, is that many Jewish families who converted to Christianity — the conversos or New Christians — took on Castilian and Portuguese surnames to blend in, sometimes adopting the name of a baptismal godparent or the town where they lived.
That is why many surnames associated with Sephardic families are also very common Spanish and Portuguese names, borne equally by families with no Jewish roots at all. Finding your name on a list like this one does not prove Sephardic ancestry: it is a clue that gains meaning alongside other signs — family customs, the region your family came from, oral tradition.
A list of common Sephardic surnames
These are some of the surnames documented in Sephardic communities and among descendants of conversos, grouped loosely. Many appear in Inquisition records, in the communities of the exile (Amsterdam, Salonica, Istanbul, northern Morocco), and in the reference lists Spain and Portugal have used for their nationality laws:
- Biblical or Hebrew origin: Cohen, Levi (Halevi), Benveniste, Nahmias, Abravanel (Abarbanel), Aboab, Zacuto, Gabbai, Melamed.
- Toponymic (from a place): Toledano, Cordovero, Laguna, Medina, Sevilla, Navarro, Leon, Castro, Franco.
- Widespread in Latin America: Espinosa, Pereira, Pardo, Rivera (Ribera), Nieto, Pimentel, Pinto, Mendez (Mendes), Nunez (Nunes), Henriquez, Carvajal, Torres, Rodriguez.
- Common in exile communities: Sarfati, Sasson, Behar, Molho, Amado, Curiel, Senior, Nieto.
This is a selection, not an exhaustive list — and it bears repeating: surnames like Rodriguez, Torres, or Medina are carried by millions of people with no connection to this history.
Spanish vs Portuguese Jewish surnames
The history splits into two branches. In Spain, the turning point was the Alhambra Decree (1492): those who would not convert had to leave. In Portugal, the forced conversion of 1497 was almost total, so nearly every Portuguese Jew became a New Christian overnight — which is why so many ordinary Portuguese surnames (Pereira, Henriques, Nunes, Carvalho, Pimentel) appear among those of converso origin.
In recent years, both Spain (a 2015 law whose application window has since closed) and Portugal opened paths to citizenship for descendants of Sephardic Jews who could document that link. The conditions have changed and tightened; if that route interests you, always check the current state of the law through official sources, because a surname is never enough on its own.
Is my last name Jewish? Next steps
If your surname appears above, or if your family keeps customs that hint at a hidden Jewish past, the next step is to research calmly: gather the names and hometowns of your grandparents and great-grandparents, note the customs you remember, and look for parish or emigration records from your region. DNA can add another piece to that puzzle, flagging markers of Sephardic ancestry that many families long suspected but could never confirm.
We'll mail you a free at-home DNA kit as a first, exploratory step. It is not proof of Jewish status or a legal determination — it's a tool to begin answering a question your family may have carried for generations.