Where the Mendoza name comes from

Mendoza is Basque and it means cold mountain, from mendi, mountain, and hotz, cold, with the article -a on the end. The original Basque form used a tz sound that Spanish wore down into the spelling used today. Records of the family reach back to the Middle Ages in Alava, in the Basque Country, where it is thought to descend from the Lords of Llodio. Its most distinguished branch came from the village of Mendoza itself, near Vitoria, so the family and the place have carried each other's name for centuries.