Berriz is a village in Bizkaia, is located in the zone of Duranguesado or Durangaldea, and of course is near Durango, In East Bizkaia. The meaning is not very clear, there are theories, BERRI means new, and the sufix IZ is a derivative, but some authors think that the meaning of this berri is not new, but forest.

In Berriz there are 4 houses with the name Berriz ( Berriz-Asategi, Berrizbeitia, Berrizbeitia, and Berriz-Mill), the two houses berriz-Beitia were built by a family named Berriz, so are branches. There were in the past a House-Tower named berriz and I think this was the origin of the surname, and the origin of the name of the village (I suposse)

There are other branche in a village named Iurreta (close to berriz), and there were other branche of this family in Extremadura (Spain). A man named Ochoa Lopez de Berriz, take part in the capture of the city of Antequera (Malaga), to the muslims in 1410, other man called Villarreal de Berriz was named knight of Santiago in 1736.

Coat of Arms: there are 4 coats but I shall transcript the original one in spanish:

Cortado: 1st en plata, una cruz de gules, hueca y floreteada; 2nd jaquelado de azur y gules, con los 4 jaqueles de jefe, punta y flancos, cargados de una flor de lis de oro.

The Owner of the Tower in 1704 was Pedro Villarreal, in the census of 1704 there aren't families with this surname living in Berriz (there are families with the surname Berrizbeitia). In the actual Telephone Gide of Bilbao, Berriz and Iurreta, there isn't any Berriz

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