Heredia (etymology)

Heredia is a place-name and surname stemming from the singular Latin noun heredium (plural: heredia). However, different evolution paths have been postulated for the word, even different origins.

For other uses, see Heredia.

Hereditary land

According to Belgian economist Émile Louis Victor de Laveleye, the heredium was "land transmitted hereditarily". The heredium symbolized "the continuity between one generation of citizens and the next".[1]

In Apellidos vascos, linguist Koldo Mitxelena postulates a similar heredium root for the surname and village Heredia in the Basque Country, attested as Deredia for small place-names in Basque, due to prothesis, in the same way as Basque surname and place-name Gerediaga.[2]

Other words related to heredia include:[3]

Unit of measurement

A heredium is also an Ancient Roman unit of measurement, approximately equivalent to 1.246 acres or 5060 square meters.[4]

Herod

On the other hand, Flavius Josephus believes that heredium was a name given to a costly citadel in memory of Herod's great actions, as Herod "adorned it with the most costly palaces, and erected very strong fortifications" (The Genuine Works of Flavius Josephus, page 48). Likewise, the History of Free Masonry claims that Heredia is a name derived from Herod the Great and his Herodian Kingdom.

References
  1. The Roman Garden: Space, Sense, and Society by Katharine T. Von Stackelberg
  2. Michelena, Luis (1997). Apellidos vascos. Txertoa. pp. 98–99.
  3. Harvard's Archimedes Project, a scholarly research on the "history of mechanics and engineering from antiquity to the Renaissance"
  4. Roman Weights & Measure
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