García (surname)

Garcia or García is a Basque origin surname common throughout Spain, Portugal, parts of France, the Americas, and the Philippines. It is a surname of patronymic origin; García was a very common first name in early medieval Iberian Peninsula.

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It is attested since the high Middle Ages north and south of the Pyrenees (Basque Culture Territories), with the surname (sometimes first name too) thriving especially on the Kingdom of Navarre and spreading out to Castile and other Spanish regions.

Alfonso Irigoyen believed it to derive from the Basque adjective garze(a) meaning "young", whose modern form is gaztea or gaztia. Ramón Menéndez Pidal and Antonio Tovar suggests it may come from the Basque word (H)artz, meaning "(the) Bear". A third etymology suggests it may derive from the Basque words "Gazte Hartz", meaning "(the) young bear". Variant forms of the name include Garcicea, Gartzi, Gartzia, Gartze, Garsea, and Gastea. The original Basque form with an affricate sibilant (/ts/, Basque spelling /tz/) evolved in Spanish to the current form.

There are Gasconic cognates of Garcia like Gassie and Gassion (Béarn, Gassio 14th century, real name of Edith Piaf, born Edith Gassion).

Other theories suggest that García is of Germanic origin and may derive from wars meaning young warrior or the Visigothic words garxa and garcha meaning graceful prince.

García is the most common surname in Spain (where 3.32% of population is named García) and also the second most common surname in Mexico and Cuba.

In the 1990 United States Census, Garcia was the 18th most reported surname, accounting for 0.25% of the population. It has become common in the United States due to substantial Latin American immigration, and is now the 8th most common surname in the U.S.

Quite rare before the 1st World War in France, except in the French Pays Basque, Garcia is now the 14th most common surname in France (the 8th one for the number of birth between 1966 and 1990), due to an important Spanish immigration. It ranked 2th in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur after the number of births 1966–1990.

García is also the third most common surname amongst Spanish in the United Kingdom.