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in reply to a message by genao
Genao is found in Spain as you can see at http://infobel.com/en/world/Teldir.aspx?Ct=Europe&Co=Spain&Dn=Infobel&url=http://www.infobel.com/Spain but it seems to be Catalan rather than Spanish. I don't know what it means.
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Genao is not Catalan for sure. Because of the ending, it seems more a Portuguese surname or it could be from Spanish origin coming from -ado (-ado>-ao).
Genao is not common in Spain and it is more habitual in Madrid that in Barcelona (where probably it appears because of Castilian and Galician immigration):
http://kindo.com/index.php/es/apellido/Genao.html/
It seems that the original spelling of the surname was Henao in 16th and 17th centuries, when the name arrived to Dominican Republic:
"According to the book "Dominican Families", by Carlos Larrazábal Blanco that stablishes the original form of this surname as "Henao", and places its arrival to Dominican Republic in XVI and XVII centuries, but do not stablishes its origin."
http://boards.ancestry.com/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=399&p=localities.caribbean.domrep.general
If that is right, Henao could be a surname coming from a place name (the province of Hainaut/Henegouwen/Hennegau, Henao in Spanish). Since Hainaut was a Spanish territory in 16th and 17th centuries, as other territories in Southern Netherlands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Netherlands), it is not surprising the presence of people from Hainaut in the Spanish court and in Spain in general (and surnames coming from origin place names or from origin adjectives are not unusual in Spanih: Catalán, Alemán, Lisbona...).
Genao is not common in Spain and it is more habitual in Madrid that in Barcelona (where probably it appears because of Castilian and Galician immigration):
http://kindo.com/index.php/es/apellido/Genao.html/
It seems that the original spelling of the surname was Henao in 16th and 17th centuries, when the name arrived to Dominican Republic:
"According to the book "Dominican Families", by Carlos Larrazábal Blanco that stablishes the original form of this surname as "Henao", and places its arrival to Dominican Republic in XVI and XVII centuries, but do not stablishes its origin."
http://boards.ancestry.com/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=399&p=localities.caribbean.domrep.general
If that is right, Henao could be a surname coming from a place name (the province of Hainaut/Henegouwen/Hennegau, Henao in Spanish). Since Hainaut was a Spanish territory in 16th and 17th centuries, as other territories in Southern Netherlands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Netherlands), it is not surprising the presence of people from Hainaut in the Spanish court and in Spain in general (and surnames coming from origin place names or from origin adjectives are not unusual in Spanih: Catalán, Alemán, Lisbona...).
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