López Velarde was born in Jerez de García Salinas, Zacatecas. He was the first of nine children of José Guadalupe López Velarde, a lawyer from Jalisco, and Trinidad Berumen Llamas, who came from a local landowning family. José, after an unsuccessful law career, had founded a Catholic school in Jerez. In 1900, Ramón was sent to a seminary in Zacatecas, where he remained for two years; later, when his family moved, he transferred to a seminary in Aguascalientes. In 1905 he abandoned the seminary in favor of a career in the law.