Cruz

Cruz is primarily a surname, but is also used as a first name mainly in the US and the UK. It is of Iberian origin, first found in Castile, Spain, and later spread throughout the territories of the former Spanish and Portuguese Empires. In Spanish and Portuguese, the word means "cross", either the Christian cross or the figure of transecting lines or ways. For example, in the Philippines, the adopted Tagalog word is rendered to "krus" in plain usage, but the Spanish spelling survives as a surname.