What country does the last name "Anaya" come from?

Question

What country does the last name "Anaya" come from?

Answer 1

India

Answer 2

Anaya  

Last name origins & meanings:

Basque: from Basque Anaia, from anai ‘brother’ + the definite article (suffixed) -a. In Basque this was used both as a byname and as a personal name.

Spanish: habitational name from either of two places called Anaya, in Salamanca and Segovia provinces. The place name is probably of Arabic origin.

Answer 3

just in Arabic, Spanish , Italian and maybe Portuguese .

for example we spell Spain in Arabic as Espania (or Espanya)

like this

Answer 4

A country - only one - called 'COUN' = country of united nations! Try - adding to it you get 'country'!

Answer 5

In 1900, the census shows over 300 persons with this name.. almost all are in the Southwest (NM, Colorado, etc).  Interestingly.. scanning through the oldest persons (some born as early as 1825), they give NM as place of birth for both themselves, AND for their parents.  That would take back into the late 1700s, when of course, there was no New Mexico but was under Mexican rule.  

Many Mexican names will eventually "work" back to Spanish.. my hunch is that this family probably has some Native ancestry as well.

edit-

http://genforum.genealogy.com/anaya/inde...

you may have fun with others working the family. Genforum often has a family "guru" who has invested a lot of energy in finding way back info.