Pardo (surname)

Pardo is a family deriving its surname from Prado in Castile or from Prado del Rey in the province of Cadiz. The place-name Prado is derived from the Spanish word prado, which means meadow. As with the name Castro/Crasto, letters have become transposed. The Spanish word pardo means brownish grey.

Members of the Pardo family have mostly distinguished themselves in the Levant.

The Pardo family which apparently originated in Prado del Rey flourished during the 16th–18th centuries in the Ottoman Empire, Italy, the Netherlands, England, and America. Many members of the family were scattered throughout North America, where they became known as Brown or Browne.

The name belongs to Jewish people who settled in the Iberian Peninsula; and today in countries like Israel, Spain, Curaçao, Guatemala, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Argentina and Chile.

Traces of Jewish life are known in the Iberian Peninsula from the Romans, which were already in these territories those exiled Jews of Jerusalem, including pardus dubbed by the Romans themselves; however for the subject that interests us we must go back to the years after the expulsion of the Jewish first of Spain (1492), and after Portugal (1496). This diaspora within the diaspora, which gave rise to the Sephardim, led many to settle in cities Ottoman Empire, in many cases sponsored by the same authorities of the empire that not only were welcoming this group of immigrants, but also preferred installation in areas that not long ago had been conquered and where they wanted to strengthen its sovereignty. This name is after the various persecutions spread by the Catholic kings, many Jews were forced to leave Spain and expanded by various territories of Europe including Thessalonica, Bitola (city of ancient Republic of Macedonia), Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Serbia, Bosnia and later after the conquest of America went to the new Spanish colonies which did not cease its persecution since it was reformed in the new world under the Court of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Today this name is very common in Israel and is as recognizable by their Sephardic origin among the most common are: Levy, Sarfati, Cohen, Ovadia, Albalak, Azulai, Pinto.