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10/6/2024, 9:08 PM Mike C update #116
4/25/2021, 10:07 PM Mike C added

Type Surname (from location)
Pronounced Pron. /ˈpan.t͡sa/(Italian)

Meaning & History

From a variant of the Italian word pancia meaning "stomach, paunch", originally a nickname for a chubby person. The Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes used it in his novel Don Quixote (1605), where it is the surname of Don Quixote's squire Sancho Panza. Not a common Spanish surname, Cervantes may have based it directly on the Spanish word panza (a cognate of the Italian word).