What Does Mejia Mean?
Messiah is the primary meaning of the name Mejia, which is a gender-neutral name of Spanish origin. The surname from Spain could imply “Messiah” in reference to Jesus Christ.
What is the Origin of Mejia?
Meja is a Spanish surname that was first recorded in the early 1500s in Spain. Its actual roots are unknown, and numerous ideas about its etymology exist.
The surname is most commonly found in the Spanish areas of Galicia and Toledo, but it is also widespread in Latin American countries such as Mexico, Honduras, and Colombia.
The marriage of a Galician named Garca Sánchez de Mejas to the daughter of Juan Sánchez de Mendoza, brother of Don Lope de Mendoza, Archbishop of Compostela, is the first recorded mention of the surname being used.
The surname could have come from the Galician villages of Mesa or Muxa.
Another popular belief is that the name has Sephardic origins, owing to the Spanish Kingdom’s forced conversion of Jewish residents to Castillian surnames.
Others have suggested that the name was given at baptism by a priest who chose a scriptural word rather than being a result of translation.
Furthermore, Spaniards of Jewish or Muslim heritage were not permitted to emigrate to the New World colonies, so this hypothesis may not account for the surname’s current widespread use in Latin America.
In 2014, 23.7 percent of all known bearers of the surname Meja lived in Mexico (frequency 1:450), 16.2 percent in Colombia (1:253), 14.4 percent in Honduras (1:53),
8.0 percent in Guatemala (1:172), 6.5 percent in the Dominican Republic (1:138), 6.3 percent in the United States (1:4,915), 6.3 percent in El Salvador (1:86), 4.7 percent in Peru (1:583), 2.9 percent in Ecuador (1:475), (1:510).
