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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian : nickname for a belligerent person or for a soldier, from guerra ‘war’. In some cases the Italian name may represent a short form of various compound personal names containing this element, for example Vinciguèrra. The Iberian name may in some cases reflect a misinterpretation of the Basque base ezquerra, esquerra, from esker ‘left-handed’.
  • Basque : Castilianized form of Basque Gerra, a topographic name for someone who lived in a break or depression in a range of hills, from Basque gerri ‘waist’.

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