Talk:Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba

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Does Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba have Islamic maternal ancestry?

Does anyone know whether Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba has Islamic ancestry on his mother’s side? I only ask this because his maternal surname of Rubalcaba sounds suspiciously Islamic. If we break down this surname to Rub-al-caba we get the following meanings:

Rub- Refers to Allah in Arabic
al- means “the” in Arabic
caba- Refers to Islam’s holiest site in Mecca
i.e. taken as one word his surname would be translated from Arabic to English as: "Lord of the Kaaba", which is in reference to Allah's ownership of Islams holiest site.

Perhaps he is of partial Islamic descent traced back to the era of Islam in Spain. Besides he does look rather Arab. Just thought it would be interesting to bring up the issue and see what others think.Artefactual (talk) 04:02, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, Rubalcaba origins has nothing to do with Islam. Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba was born in w:es:Solares, in the autonomous community of Cantabria, northern Spain. This town is located 8 kilometers away from w:es:Rubalcaba, the hometown of his maternal family. The etymology of the name of this town is not Arab, but Spanish and Cantabrian: Río (de la) Valle Cava, ie Deep Valley River, with a significant and typical reduction of the word phonic body: Río>Ríu>Ru Valle>Val Cava -> Ruvalcava -> Rubalcaba (v and b are the same phoneme /b/ in modern Spanish).

Note that the region of Cantabria in the north of the Iberian Peninsula was never under Muslim control, since it is situated in the Cantabrian Mountains where Northern Christian kingdoms stopped the Muslim advance and where the Reconquista began. Therefore Cantabria, and northern Spain in general, has nothing to do with Arab culture or language; in fact all place names and anthroponyms in this area are pre-Roman, Latin or Romance origin. I hope this information has been helpful to you. --Uhanu (talk) 04:53, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]