Jiménez (surname)

Jiménez
Family name
Region of origin	Basque, Spain
Language(s) of origin	Spanish
Related names	Jimenes, Giménez, Gimenes, Ximénez, Ximenes, Ximenis, Eiximenis
Footnotes: Frequency Comparisons:

Jiménez (archaic forms, Ximénez or Ximenes; Galician and Portuguese: Ximenes, Catalan: Ximenis or Eiximenis) is a surname of Iberian origin, first appearing in the Basque lands. Jiménez is a patronymic construction from the modern-styled given name Jimeno, plus the Spanish suffix -ez, meaning "son [of]". The root appears to stem from Basque semen ('son'), attested in the Aquitanian inscriptions as Sembeconnis and like forms. Variants of the surname include the archaic Ximénez, Ximenes, as well as Giménez, Gimenes, Jimenes, Chiménez, Chimenes, Seménez and Semenes.

In Spanish orthography, the variations of Jiménez that end with a z are written with an acute accent on the second syllable. In English, all variations are commonly written without the diacritic.

In Portuguese orthography, there is no diacritic used for Ximenes.

As the modern name Ximenes has an -es suffix, it is almost certainly of Portuguese, Galician or Old Spanish origin, as the orthographic change to -ez (and indeed, the consonant shift from X to J) was revised in Spain only in the late 18th century. This obviously was not the case in Portugal.

Other languages in Castilian-dominated lands like Aragon, Asturias, Galicia, etc. often retained the -es ending, and their descendants bear witness to this historical anomaly. In Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearics, the ending -is is used instead of -es (or -ez), hence, the spelling Ximenis (or the variant with vowel epenthesis, Eiximinis or Eximenis).

...
Wikipedia