Borja is a Spanish surname and given name linked to the place name Borja in Aragon.
Borja is a Spanish and Catalan surname-turned-given-name whose origins lie in the small town of Borja in the Aragon region of northeastern Spain. The place name itself may derive from pre-Roman Iberian roots, with some scholars connecting it to a Celtiberian or Roman settlement. The name's global fame — and notoriety — comes from the Borja family, who rose from Aragonese nobility to dominate Renaissance Europe as the Italian dynasty known as the Borgias.
Pope Callixtus III (Alfonso de Borja) ascended to the papacy in 1455, and his nephew Rodrigo became Pope Alexander VI in 1492, one of the most controversial figures in Church history. The Borgia name became synonymous in Renaissance Europe with political cunning, suspected poisonings, and brazen nepotism — but also with extraordinary patronage of the arts. Cesare Borgia was the model Niccolò Machiavelli drew upon for The Prince.
Lucrezia Borgia, long vilified as an accomplice to her family's schemes, has been substantially rehabilitated by modern historians as a skilled administrator and genuine patron of culture. The Borgias' shadow is long: they appear in countless novels, operas, films, and prestige television series. In Spain and Latin America, Borja remains a living given name used without the Italian spelling's darker connotations — it is simply a proud regional name, connected to Aragonese identity. As a given name in the 21st century it carries a Renaissance boldness: aristocratic, historically loaded, and unmistakably Iberian.