Baca

Where the name comes from

• Spanish
  In New Mexico, shortened from Cabeza de Vaca; elsewhere a variant of Vaca, "cow"
  Spanish vaca "cow" < Latin vacca; Cabeza de Vaca, "cow’s head", a place name in Galicia
  DAFN gives Baca first as "Spanish: variant of Vaca," where Vaca is "from the vocabulary word vaca ‘cow’ ... probably applied as a metonymic occupational name for a cowherd or as a nickname." The New Mexico family is explained under DAFN’s Debaca: "Hispanic (also De Baca): shortened and altered form of Spanish Cabeza de Vaca," itself "a habitational name from any of the places called Cabeza de Vaca ‘cow’s head’ in Galicia (mainly Ourense)." New Mexico family histories describe the Cabeza de Vaca derivation as generally assumed. DAFN’s other Baca senses (Polish, Slovak, Czech, Croatian "senior shepherd"; Hungarian; Albanian) are unrelated names that share the spelling.

Baca across traditions

• Colonial Nuevo México. Cristóbal Baca, a captain, arrived in New Mexico in 1600 with the reinforcements for Oñate’s colony (Chávez, Origins of New Mexico Families, pp. 9–10). In 1880, 2,124 Baca families lived in New Mexico, about 88% of all US Bacas.

Who carried it

• Elfego Baca (1865–1945): New Mexico gunfighter, sheriff, lawyer and politician.
• Joseph F. Baca (Born 1936): Justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court 1989–2002, Chief Justice 1994–1997.
• Jimmy Santiago Baca (Born 1952): Poet and memoirist, born in Santa Fe.

Forms in other languages

Vaca, De Baca, C de Baca, Cabeza de Vaca

Baca in letter-number systems

Hebrew, Greek and other traditions gave every letter a number, and read meaning into the totals. These are the counts, computed; the readings are inside the Innerverse.