The Origin of the Surname Orbeta
by Gregorio Sanchez Orbeta

Last modified:  25 October 2005

Greg Orbeta I was catching up on the research for my roots in the Internet,  when I chanced upon Researchers,  Genealogists,  and unknown relatives,  who were then on a similar genealogical research missions of their own,  and mutually interested in tracing the consanguinity of our families.
Apart from the hundredfold of family data that we discovered and collected for our respective genealogical databases,  by some strange chance,  we came across the "Origin of the Surname Orbeta",  through the kindness of  the Basque Researchers,  Blas Pedro Uberuaga  and Xabier Ormaetxea.

The Surname Orbeta

According to Xabier Ormaetxea,  " Orbeta is a Basque surname and Basque surnames are usually names of houses or farms. The names of the houses were derived from the names or topographies of the place, or from any characteristics of the house.
Families took their house's name as the name of the family, and that was before the Council of Trent  that obligated the making of baptismal records and naming the children with the surname of the father. "

But,  why was the house so named,  Orbeta ?

Blas Pedro Uberuaga  propounded that,  " Orbeta and Orueta are the same word.  In the 1704 Census of Plencia,  there is no Orbeta,  the house appears as Orueta,  the owner was Pedro Orueta.  So I think the surname was Orueta and in the middle of the 17th century,  it was changed to Orbeta.
The meaning of Orbeta is not clear.  To some historians,  the Basque language adopted it from the Latin word "Urba" or "Orbis".  Other historians thought that was  "Orb"  which means in Basque,  Manor Place.  So the translation can be ( the house in the )  Manor Place. "

More of the Surname Orbeta,  click: Blas Pedro Uberuaga   |  Dominick Vila Coto

Other Related Information

Iñaki de la Torre   |  Romina S. Orbeta  |  Rolando O.Borrinaga, Ph.D
Jose S. Arcilla, S.J.

For feedback,  e-mail gorbeta@gmail.com



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