Family name origins & meanings
- Spanish (Cortés), Catalan (Cortès), and Portuguese (Cortês) : from cortés ‘courteous’, ‘polite’, a derivative of corte (see Corte), a nickname for a refined person, sometimes no doubt given ironically.
- Spanish and Portuguese (Cortes) : habitational name from any of numerous places in Spain and Portugal named with cortes, plural of corte ‘court’.