Names ending in “-es” and “-ez”

Introduction

Most Spanish surnames (or perhaps even all of them?) that end in “-ez”, like the Portuguese ones in “-es”, are paroxitones (which means that the stress falls on the penultimate syllable), and therefore require the acute accent (´). In Portuguese, this isn't necessary, because the corresponding names end in “-es”, and according to the spelling rules they are automatically paroxitones without needing a written accent.

Compare Eça de Queiroz, a name which is sometimes also written Eça de Queirós, without any consequences for the pronunciation.

Table

Spanish surname	Portuguese surname
Álvarez	Álvares
Álvez	Alves
Antúnez	Antunes
Chávez	Chaves
El Cordobés (!)
Fernández	Fernandes
Domínguez	Domingues
Gálvez	Galves ??
Giménez, Jiménez, Ximénez	Ximenes
Gómez	Gomes
González	Gonçales
Gutiérrez	Guterres
Herráez	Ferraz?, Ferras?, Ferrás?
Hernández	Hernandes
Ibáñez	Ianhes?, Eanes?
Jerez (!)	Xerez (!)
López	Lopes
Martínez	Martins
Márquez	Marques
Méndez	Mendes
Móntez	Montes
Núñez	Nunes
Pérez	Peres (Kenneth, Belle)
Ramírez	Ramires
Pírez	Pires
Rodríguez	Rodrigues
Sáez	??
Sánchez	Sanches
Suárez	Soares
Valdez, Valdés (!)
Vázquez	Vasques
Velázquez, Velásquez	Velasques
Peneda-Xurés (!)	Peneda-Gerês (!)

Stress patterns

The word is	if the stresses syllable is the	Example
oxytone	last	arroz
paroxytone	penultimate (last but one)	palavra
proparoxytone	antepenultimate (last but two)	última

In English, in het Nederlands, em português

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External links, added 26 March 2010:
The 100 most frequent surnames in Portugal.
The 100 most frequent first names in Portugal.