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Spanish naming customs

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In Spanish-speaking countries (Spain, Latin America, etc.), people typically have one or more forenames and two surnames, the first inherited from the father and the second from the mother. When referring to people it is common to use one or both forenames and the first surname, but this is not a rule rigidly applied; e.g., the second surname is often used if the first is very common and likely to lead to confusion. References below to Spain also apply, sometimes to a lesser degree, to other Spanish-speaking countries.

For example, the name Carlos Slim Helú indicates a patriarchal last name "Slim," and a matriarchal last name "Helú." His son's name has the same configuration; Carlos Slim Domit, with a patriarchal last name "Slim," and a matriarchal last name "Domit."

Naming system in Spain

In Spain, people usually use two surnames and one or two given names (two names are also called a composite name). The concept of middle name as known in English-speaking countries doesn't exist in Spain. Thus José Antonio Calderón Iglesias is Señor Calderón ("Mr. Calderón" in English), not Señor Iglesias, and "Calderón" is not a middle name. His friends would call him either José Antonio, José or (less often) Antonio. When people having Spanish names immigrate into the United States, they sometimes resort to uniting their surnames with a hyphen in order to avoid frequent confusion, thus: "Mr. José Antonio Calderón-Iglesias".

Legally and traditionally the first surname is the father's first surname (apellido paterno, paternal surname), the second the mother's first surname (apellido materno, maternal surname). In recent times laws of gender equality allow the surnames to be transposed, subject to the condition that all children of a family must use the same order. Even before these laws, the order could be changed in special cases.

Map showing the most common surname by Spanish province of residence
Map of Spain showing the percentage of population born in each province corresponding to the 10 most common surnames for that province. Source: Instituto Nacional de Estadística (Spain) 2006

First names

In Spain first names are chosen by the parents and must be registered at the Registro Civil (Civil Register).[1] It is customary for parents within the Catholic religious tradition to have their children baptised and given a name by a priest, but this has no legal validity.

Parents can choose any names they wish, with few restrictions. Sometimes a name is chosen to honour a living or dead relative. The most common source of names is the nomina of Catholic saints.

Legislation in Francoist Spain and some other countries (i.e., Argentina) used to allow only Christian and classical names; in some cases the forenames of immigrants had to be translated into what was deemed their closest equivalent. Nowadays the only limit in Spain is the dignity of the newborn, so a child cannot be given a name which is insulting to it or for the general public. Similar restrictions applied for "diminutives" or familiar and colloquial variants that have not been recognized in their own right or "those that lead to confusion regarding sex"[2]. However, the new Spanish law on gender identity[3] has authorized the registration of diminutives.[4]

María and José

Girls born into Catholic families were often named after Mary, mother of Jesus (the Virgin Mary), with the addition of the name of one of her shrines, a geographical location where someone had a vision of her, or a religious concept. This custom is in some decline but by no means abandoned. Some women omit the "Mary of the..." part of their names and use only the last, except on official documents and very formal occasions. So, for example, the real names of "Ángeles", "Pilar" and "Luz" (literally "Angels", "Pillar" and "Light") are often "María de los Ángeles", "María del Pilar" and "María de la Luz." Each of these is considered a single (composite) name. A girl may also be named simply "María".

"María" can be part of the name of a male if prefixed by a masculine name: for example, José María Aznar. Conversely, a girl can be named "María José" or "Marijosé" after Saint Joseph, husband of the Virgin Mary.

In writing, the name "María" is commonly abbreviated "Mª" or "Ma".

Names registered

The official Spanish Registro Civil records a single forename or at most two forenames (also known as one composite forename), plus two family names per person. People can be baptized with more than two forenames (e.g. the son of Infanta Elena, Felipe Juan Froilán de Todos los Santos), but this is almost never done except by royalty and the nobility, and has no legal validity.

Maiden name in Spain

In Spain, a woman does not change her surnames when she marries. Therefore the concept of a 'maiden name' does not exist in Spain. Women may be known by their maiden name and surname, or with the addition of "de" and their husband's first surname, though this latter practice has no legal value and is often regarded as pedantic. Thus when Pedro Pérez Montilla marries Leocadia Blanco Alvarez she may choose to be known by her maiden name, or as Señora Blanco de Pérez, or Señora Pérez. It is quite normal to speak of Señor Pedro Pérez and his wife Leocadia Blanco. However, in Latin American countries the rule is reversed: it is still widely accepted that a woman starts using a "de" and her husband's first surname when she marries, instead of her maiden surname.

Customs differ to some extent from one country to another. For example, the second and third wives of the Argentinean President Juan Perón were usually known as Eva Perón (Evita) and Isabel Perón (Isabelita); they were politically important women, and the Perón "brand-name" was "valuable", hence the exception of using the surname even without a "de".

An example of the uncertainty of this usage is in Don Quixote 2, V where Teresa Panza reminds that she should be properly called by her father's surname.[5]

Transmission of surnames

The trasmission of surnames is equal for women and men. For example: if Ángela López Martínez and Tomás de la Cruz Portillo have a daughter named Laura and a son named Pedro they will normally be named Laura de la Cruz López and Pedro de la Cruz López (they could also be named Laura López de la Cruz and Pedro López de la Cruz, but always the same order for all children).

If the paternal surname comes first, it means that the surnames of the female branch get lost as generations pass. So to protect equality between genders, current laws in Spain allow that the maternal surname can be the first one.

While Spain has recently introduced legal provisions to allow parents to freely decide the order of surnames, the overwhelming majority of Spaniards continue to follow the traditional pattern of father's first and mother's second. Traditionally, the person is usually commonly known by his/her first name and father's last name only. For example, Real Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas Fernández is more commonly known as just Iker Casillas to the football world and colleagues. His Real teammate Raúl González Blanco would similarly be known as Raúl González, but he is more commonly known in football circles simply as Raúl.

It should be noted, however, that historically the transmission of paternal name to surnames was not the convention. Prior to the mid-18th century, in many Spanish-speaking countries, children were given the maternal surname and in some occasions even that of a grandparent shared by neither of the child's parents due to prestige or land inheritance. The paternal-maternal combination and name order is a phenomenon that developed only in the last two hundred years.

As is still the case with Catalan names, in Spanish names the option exists to connect the two surnames by means of y ("and"): one well known example of this is José Ortega y Gasset. Thus, Tomás could choose to style himself "Tomás Portillo y Blanco", albeit at the risk, in most of the contemporary world, of appearing affected or self-consciously following a slightly antiquated use.

In Spain, if the father is either unknown or does not want to recognize his child, the newborn will take both surnames of the mother. Thus, if María López Martínez has a child by an unknown father, and she wants to name her son José, he will be called José López Martínez. A common insult in Spain is to say "...yes, but I have two surnames." implying that the contender does not, meaning that he is a bastard.

Occasionally, a person with a common paternal surname and an uncommon maternal surname becomes widely known by the maternal surname, as with the artist Pablo Ruiz Picasso, best known simply as "Picasso", or the poet Federico García Lorca, often known simply as "Lorca", or even the Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, best known as "Zapatero". Nevertheless, this use is very colloquial, and it is never used in a formal or a legal way. Conversely, Eduardo Hughes Galeano is known as "Galeano" because his paternal surname "Hughes" is completely foreign in Spanish. In his childhood he occasionally signed as "Eduardo Gius" as an approximate pronunciation of "Hughes".

Not every surname is a single word. A particularly felicitious or renowned combination of paternal and maternal surnames may propagate to the following generation as a double paternal surname, especially when the paternal surname alone would be considered "undistinguished". Another extreme example of this is former madrilenian mayor José María Álvarez del Manzano y López del Hierro, whose name is formed by a compound forename (José María) and two compound surnames (Álvarez del Manzano and López del Hierro). Other double-barreled surnames derive from church names, as "San José". When a person has one of these double surnames, it is more common to use the 'y' between the paternal and maternal component parts.

Castile and Alava surnames

It was also common for surnames originating from Castile and Álava (Basque Country) to have the form "[patronymic] de [placename]". Hence for José Ignacio López de Arriortúa, "López de Arriortúa" is just one surname. This can cause confusion as both "López" and "de Arriortúa" can be found as single surnames. In Spain, unlike in neighboring France, the prefix "de" (meaning "of") on a surname does not typically indicate noble origin. It may be introduced just to mark a surname that can be misunderstood as a forename. Thus, Luis de Miguel Pérez marks that his forename is just Luis, not Luis Miguel. In short forms, the de may be included: Hernando de Soto is known as "de Soto", but not "Soto"; or Juan de la Cierva, known as "De la Cierva" but not "Cierva". This is not the case with (Felipe de Borbón who is a "Borbón", not a "de Borbón").

The particle "y"

Beginning in the 16th century, the Spanish custom of separating the two surnames with the copulative conjunction "y" (meaning "and") arose. Examples of this custom include names such as Luis de Góngora y Argote (16th- and 17th-century Andalusian writer), Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (18th- and 19th-century Aragonese painter) and José Ortega y Gasset (Madrilenian philosopher and essayist of the 20th century). The convention was used by Latin American clergymen, for example, Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdamez in El Salvador. This use gained legal sanction with the Ley de Registro Civil in 1870, which required birth certificates to indicate the two surnames joined with the particle "y". In this fashion, the birth certificates of Spanish politicians Felipe González Márquez and José María Aznar López appeared as "Felipe González y Márquez" and "José María Aznar y López". However it is less frequent than its Catalan version.

The particle "y" is often found useful in avoiding confusion when the first (paternal) surname is of a type that could also be a forename. For example, if the physiologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal had not used it, it might have appeared that he had the double-barreled forename Santiago Ramón and that Cajal was the only surname he used. Other examples of this use include the jurist Francisco Tomás y Valiente and the churchman Vicente Enrique y Tarancón. Examples of confusion when "y" is not used in such a case are the football player Martín Vázquez, whose full name is Rafael Martín Vázquez but who is believed by many fans to have Martín as his forename, and the linguist Fernando Lázaro Carreter, who was sometimes addressed (to his annoyance) as Don Lázaro.

In the case that the second surname starts with I (or vowel Y or Hi), the particle becomes e, following Spanish rules of euphony, as in Eduardo Dato e Iradier.

'Son of' and '-ez'

Although the use of double surnames renders the matter far less common than in the English-speaking world, a man who has the same forename as his father may suffix his name with "(h)" (standing for "hijo", meaning "son"), analogously to the English language "Jr.".

In Spanish, most surnames ending in "-ez" originated as patronymics[citation needed]. Thus "López" originally meant "son of Lope", "Fernández" meant "son of Fernando", "Ramírez" meant "son of Ramiro", "González" meant "son of Gonzalo", etc. Other common examples of this are "Hernández" (from Hernando, a variant of "Ferdinand" / "Fernando"), "Rodríguez" (from "Rodrigo"), "Sánchez" (from "Sancho"), "Martínez" (from "Martín"), and "Álvarez" (from "Álvaro"). Not all last names in -ez have this origin, however. Because the Spanish letter "z" is pronounced identically to the letter "s" in parts of Andalusia and in all of Spanish America (or about 90% of the Spanish-speaking world), one finds in Spanish America spellings such as "Chávez" (e.g. Hugo Chávez), and "Cortez" (e.g. Alberto Cortez), which are not patronymics and which traditionally were (and in Spain still are) always spelled "Chaves" (e.g. Manuel Chaves), and "Cortés" (e.g. "Hernán Cortés").

Foundlings

Foundlings presented a problem to registrars. Often they were given forenames from the saint of the day they were found, the patron saint of the town or even the name of the town itself. They were often given the surname Expósito ("Foundling", from Lat. exposĭtus, exposed), which marked them and their descendants as people without pedigree. In 1921 Spanish law allowed the surname Expósito to be changed free of charge.[6]

More compassionately, one of the more common surnames was sometimes given. Foundlings were often named Iglesia(s) ("Church(es)") or Cruz (Cross) as most of them were raised in orphanages run by the Catholic Church. Blanco (White, in the sense of blank) was quite usual as well, as they had unknown parents.

Foreign citizens in Spain

Legal and illegal immigrants living in Spain keep their original naming system. But those who obtain Spanish nationality are obligated to acquire Spanish-style names(one or two names and two surnames). If they come from a country where only one legal surname exist, then their surname will be duplicated[citation needed]. For example: An American citizen living in Spain named George Albert Johnson will be named George Albert Johnson while he's living in Spain, but if he acquires Spanish nationality his name will be George Albert Johnson Johnson, with an option to choose his mother's maiden name. George Albert are considered to be his names (middle name doesn't exist in Spain but people could have two names) with Johnson as his first surname and Johnson as his second surname.

Hypocoristics and nicknames

Many Spanish names can be shortened into hypocoristic forms using a diminutive suffix, especially -(c)ito/a. Names can be somewhat more arbitrary, and are sometimes longer than the original name. The use of each of these forms varies a lot between countries and regions, to the point that some of them are very common in some countries and unheard of in some other countries. A list of common (and not so common) names and their shortened forms or nicknames:

Other languages in Spain

After the recognition of co-official languages in Spain, the law allowed the translation or respelling of names to the official languages. Speakers of other languages in Spain whose names had been rendered as Spanish equivalents and who now wish to return to their vernacular name, enjoy a simplified name-change procedure in their respective autonomous community.

Catalan names

In the Catalan language territories they have the same conventions as in Spanish territories, except that a person's two surnames are usually (but not always) separated by "i" ("and"). A real-world example would be the ex-presidents of the Generalitat de Catalunya Pasqual Maragall i Mira and of the Generalitat Valenciana Joan Lerma i Blasco.

"Mohamed"

As the map above shows, Mohamed is a very frequent surname in Ceuta (10,410[7] out of the people born in Ceuta) and Melilla (7,982[7]), the Spanish enclaves in North Africa. "Mohamed" is one of the Spanish spellings used by Spanish-speaking Muslims for the name of prophet Muhammad. As such, it is frequent as part of a male Arabic name. Hence, many Muslim Ceutans and Melillans share surnames while not having a common ancestry. To further confuse the issue, Mohamed is the most popular first name for newborn males,[8] so it is not unusual to have a Mohamed Mohamed Mohamed: the first "Mohamed" being the child's name forename, the second is the father's first surname, and the third is the mother's first surname. [9]

Naming system in Latin America

Caribbean

Venezuela, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and other Latin-American countries with proximity to the Caribbean--have taken the custom of fancy names from foreign languages, such as "Yesaidú" ("Yes, I do") or "Adonis", or composites such as "Yolimar" (from the combination of the names of each of the parents: "Yolanda" and "Mario"), or "Glorimar" (the combination of maternal family such as mother and grandmother "Gloria" and "Maria"), or "Luyen" (from the combination of "Lucía" and "Enrique") [10][11]. This fashion is not exactly regarded as of good taste, however, so it is not fully widespread.

In August 2007, the law draft for the National Electoral Council of Venezuela disallowed names that "ridicule", are "extravagant", "difficult to pronounce" or inductive to gender confusion[12]. After protests, the limiting article was removed from the draft[13].

Argentina

Argentina is a Spanish-speaking country, but most Argentinians' identity is recorded at birth with only their paternal surname. Thus, one would only occasionally hear Jorge Luis Borges referred to as "Jorge Luis Borges Acevedo", although a native Spanish speaker would certainly understand that usage. On the other hand, in some countries, such as Honduras, two surnames are required to be recorded on the birth certificate. This can cause difficulties in cases where the father's identity is unknown, or for immigrants who only have one surname.

The particle "de"

In some, but not all, Latin American countries, when a woman marries, she may choose to drop her own maternal surname and adopt her husband's paternal surname, with "de" ("of") inserted between. Thus if Ángela López Sáenz marries Tomás Portillo Blanco, she may style herself Ángela López de Portillo. This convention, however, is more a social styling than an official renaming such as takes place in English-speaking countries: on official documents, she will still be identified by her two maiden surnames. In many areas, however, this tradition is now seen as an antiquated form of discrimination against women (the de can be read as implying ownership) and is consequently on the decline. A more formal version is Ángela López, Sra. de Portillo ("Sra." is an abbreviation for señora: "Mrs.", "wife"). Another traditional usage is when a husband dies, the widow is now known as Ángela López Sáenz, vda. de Portillo (widow of - vda is the abbreviation for widow [viuda])

Spanish surnames among Filipinos

On November 21, 1849 the Spanish administration of the Philippines, under the authority of Governor General Narciso Clavería, decreed a systematic distribution of family names and the implementation of the Spanish naming system for the use of the natives.

With the Clavería decree the Catálogo Alfabético de Apellidos ("Alphabetical Catalogue of Surnames") was produced. It was a collection of surnames mostly from Spain, though many were also native Filipino words of flora and fauna, and Hispanicized Chinese numerals; which is why so many Spanish-sounding surnames found among Filipinos cannot be found among the peoples of the Hispanic world, as many are merely Hispanic in sound. Many Spanish-sounding Filipino surnames also appeared in Spain and Hispanic America by Filipino immigration.

Surnames of Spanish nobility, as well as surnames belonging to the Spanish colonial administrators in the Philippines (which had acquired connotation of prestige in the archipelago) were explicitly prohibited.

The colonial authorities implemented this decree mainly because too many early Christianized Filipinos named themselves after religious instruments and saints. Apparently, Christianization had worked much too well in that there were soon too many people surnamed "de los Santos", "de la Cruz", "del Rosario", "Bautista", etc. This caused consternation among the Spanish authorities, as it added difficulty to administration efforts.

Another custom deemed unacceptable by the Spanish, was that Filipino siblings took different last names, as they always had done before the Spaniards. All these practices led to difficulties in collecting taxes.

Because of the mass implementation of Spanish surnames and the Iberian naming system in the Philippines, among Filipinos a Spanish surname does not necessarily indicate Spanish ancestry. Filipinos with non-Spanish white American or European ancestry may have Spanish surnames and may be mistakenly thought to be of Spanish descent. Of the Philippine population, only around 3.6% is phenotypically, that is visibly, of white ancestry.

See also

Notes and references

  1. ^ Registro Civil in Spain
  2. ^ Rules applying in the name registering process in Spain
  3. ^ Ley 3/2007, de 15 de marzo, reguladora de la rectificación registral de la mención relativa al sexo de las personas: "Para garantizar el derecho de las personas a la libre elección del nombre propio, se deroga la prohibición de inscribir como nombre propio los diminutivos o variantes familiares y coloquiales que no hayan alcanzado sustantividad."
  4. ^ El Periódico, Una familia puede por fin inscribir a su hijo como Pepe tras dos años de papeleo, 17 April 2007.
  5. ^ "Teresa I was named in baptism, a clean and short name, without addings or embellishments, or furnishings of dons and dans; "Cascajo" was my father; and I, as your wife, am called "Teresa Panza" (that should in good reason be "Teresa Cascajo"), but laws are executed."
  6. ^ www.elalmanaque.com
  7. ^ a b Territorial distribution of surnames (Data from the Register on 1-1-2006). (People born with that surname as the first) + (those with it as second surname) - (people named "Mohamed Mohamed")
  8. ^ Most frequent names by date of birth and province of birth Born in the 2000s, 78,4 per mille in Ceuta, 74,3 per mille in Melilla
  9. ^ Luis Gómez, "El polvorín de Ceuta". El País, 18 May 2007
  10. ^ Venezuela: Adiós Lenin…and Other ‘Exotic’ Names, Humberto Márquez, IPS, 12 September 2007.
  11. ^ What's in a name? In Venezuela, just about anything, Simon Romero, International Herald Tribune, January 7, 2007
  12. ^ Proyecto de Ley Orgánica del Registro Civil

    Limitación a la inscripción de nombres

    Artículo 106. [...] no permitirán que [...] les coloquen nombres que los expongan al ridículo; sean extravagantes o de difícil pronunciación en el idioma oficial; contengan variantes familiares y coloquiales que denoten una identificación confusa o que generen dudas sobre la determinación del sexo. En estos casos, el registrador ofrecerá como referencia, un listado de los nombres y apellidos más comunes, [...]

    Quedan exceptuados de esta disposición los nombres de los niños, niñas o adolescentes de las etnias indígenas del país, así como los nombres de los hijos de los extranjeros [...].

  13. ^ No se incluirá en anteproyecto de ley de registro civil artículo relacionado con los nombres, [[National Electoral Council (Venezuela)|]], 13 September 2007