Vázquez is a surname of Galician origin, which later spread all over the Spanish-speaking world. Alternative spellings of the name include Vásquez or Vasques, and Vazquez or Vasquez in countries where Iberian languages are not commonly spoken.

Overview

To a lesser extent it also occurs in Portuguese-speaking countries (spelled Vasques), where Vasco is also used as a surname. Vasquez means "[son] of Vasco", and Vasco comes from the pre-Roman latinized name "Velascus", a name of uncertain origin and meaning, but probably Basque or Iberian. In Galician-Portuguese the pre-Roman name becomes Velascu > Veascu > Vaasco > Vasco.

In some Spanish-speaking countries, families of non-Iberian ancestry have also adopted this surname. In Colombia and Argentina, there have been instances of "Watzke" and "Watzka" families, of German-Czech descent, Hispanicizing their surnames to "Vasquez". The surname was chosen as being the one most closely resembling their former name; in Italy a similar phenomenon was noted with some "Watzke" changing to "Vasco".

There are also Spanish cognate surnames Velasco and Velázquez/Velazquez.^[1]

List of people with this surname

Fictional characters

• Vasquez, a supporting character from the film Aliens
• Alexandra "Alex" Vasquez, one of the three main characters of the animated television series Totally Spies!
• Esmeralda "Ezzy" Vasquez, a character from the video game Real Heroes: Firefighter
• Jonah Vasquez, a character from the video game Dead by Daylight
• Jared Vasquez, an NYPD officer, detective and lieutenant from Manifest (TV series).

References