Where the Rios name comes from

Rios is a surname carried in Galicia, Portugal and Spain, and it comes from the Spanish word rio, meaning "river". In one line of descent it began as a topographic name for a family that lived near a river. The first bearers lived, held land or were born in northwestern Spain, in what is now Galicia and Asturias. In the Middle Ages a name like this often marked who owned a village or estate.

A second origin is habitational: the name also points back to Riós, a place in Galicia, and the plain Rios spelling is an anglicised form of it. Older records spell it Rixos, Riox and Rioz, while prepositional forms such as de los Rios and del Rio survive alongside it.