Chaves clarifies the Name Baca or Vaca

IntroduChaves clarifies: [1]

“The correct spelling of this family name is VACA but already in the seventeenth century BACA had come into common usage, and was the accepted spelling after the Reconquest. Although it is derived from Cabeza de Vaca, a title and name received by a Spanish hero in the year 1212, the full name was never once used by this New Mexico family for over two centuries. Several Vacas came to the New World shortly after its discovery. Among those in Cortes’ time were Diego de Vaca, a native of Mancilla in Leon and Luis Vaca, a native of Toledo. Either of these could have been the father of Juan Vaca, the father of our Cristóbal Baca.
These were among the founding families of New Mexico; the first colonists, the very roots upon which the branches of many New Mexico families were established. These were among the few families that survived the initial Indian raids, the purging of rebels and deserters and mutinies. They were the strong, the brave, the few who lived to establish your ancestral families in the new world of New Mexico as the world moved into the new seventeenth century.”
[1]Origins p 23ction by Brent and Lynae