Query on the name "Martinez"

[Gerald Cohen]

     Edwin D. Lawson's _Personal Names And Naming: An Annotated
Bibliography_, 1987, contains a relevant item:  Hills, E.C. (1926).
"Spanish patronymics ending in _-z _."  _Revue Hispanique_, vol.  68,
pp. 161-173. --Lawson adds: "Description and analysis of a number of
types of Spanish surnames. The -_z_ ending is derived from Latin
genitive endings of _-ci_ and _-tii_. Examples include Diaz, Ruiz,
Sanz, and Ponz."

     I haven't yet gotten ahold of this article, but I assume it will
include names ending in _-ez_ as well as simply _-z_.

On 10/9/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>Apparently the '-ez' is generally thought to be from a Latin genitive
>ending, i.e. "X-ez" = "[son] of X". Probably the exact Latin form is known,
>but not to me. I would naively consider (1) descent from the
>third-declension genitive singular with "-is", or (2) descent from "-icus"
>or so. Most of the names to which this patronymic suffix is applied seem to
>be Germanic (Visigothic, I guess), so without historical information it
>would also be possible to consider the possibility of derivation from
>Gothic (which had genitive singular like "-is" also). Spanish "-ez" is
>clearly cognate with the Portuguese patronymic "-es"; is it cognate with
>Romanian "-escu" also?
>
>John Green states in one popular book: "the common suffix _-ez_ of Spanish
>family names ... though Latin in origin, probably owes its diffusion to the
>Visigoths."
>
>Patronymic surnames are of course very common in many languages ... for
>example:


----Gerald Cohen