The Spanish surname Padilla is an habitational name from any of the various minor places, for example in the provinces of Burgos, Guadalajara, and Valladolid, named from Spanish padilla ‘frying pan’, ‘breadpan’ (Latin patella, a diminutive of patina ‘shallow dish’), a word which was commonly used in the topographical sense of a gentle depression. The earliest references to the nae in written records date to the 16th Century and include Ysabella de Padillo, which was dated October 14th 1552, christened at Nuestra Senora de la Antigua, Valladolid. Today there are approximately 82,000 bearers of the surname Padilla living in The United States. Notable bearers of the surname Padilla include David Padilla born in Sucre, Bolivia in 1927. David became the 53rd president of Bolivia in 1978.