Pardo (surname)


Pardo is a Spanish or Sephardi Jewish surname. The Spanish word pardo means brownish grey.
According to The Jewish Encyclopedia, the surname is derived from Prado in Castile. At least in the case of one Pardo family, Tzorafolk believes that the surname may have been derived from Prado del Rey in the Province of Cádiz, and that the place-name Prado is derived from the Spanish word prado, which means meadow. As with the name Castro/Crasto, letters may have become transposed according to Tzorafolk.
The name belongs to Jewish people who settled due to the diaspora in the Iberian Peninsula; and today in places like Israel, Spain, Ecuador, Colombia, Curaçao, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Argentina and Chile. According to The Jewish Encyclopedia, people with this surname have mostly distinguished themselves in the Levant.
Traces of Jewish life are known in the Iberian Peninsula from the Romans, where those exiled Jews of Jerusalem were already in those territories, including those dubbed Pardus by the Romans themselves; however we must go back to the years after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and afterwards from Portugal. This diaspora within the diaspora, which gave rise to the Sephardim, led many to settle in cities in the Ottoman Empire, in many cases sponsored by the same authorities of the empire that not only were welcoming this group of immigrants, but also preferred installation in areas that had been conquered not long ago and where they wanted to strengthen its sovereignty. Due to the various persecutions by the Catholic Monarchs, many Jews were forced to leave Spain and emigrated to territories of Europe including Thessalonica, Bitola, Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Serbia, and Bosnia, and after the conquest of the Americas, the new Spanish colonies. However, persecution later continued in the colonies under the Court of the Holy Office of the Inquisition.
Today this name is very common among Sephardim in Israel; other common surnames are Levy, Sarfati, Cohen, Ovadia, Albalak, Azulai, and Pinto. People with this surname flourished during the 16th–18th centuries in the Ottoman Empire, Italy, the Netherlands, England, and the Americas. Some were scattered throughout North America, where they became known as Brown or Browne.

Notable people with the surname