Spanish names are the traditional way of identifying, and the official way of registering, a person inSpain. They are composed of agiven name (simple or composite)[a] and twosurnames (the first surname of each parent). Traditionally, the first surname is the father's first surname, and the second is the mother's first surname. Since 1999, the order of the surnames in a family in Spain is decided when registering the first child, but the traditional order is nearly universally chosen (99.53% of the time).[2][b]
| JoséGarcía Torres | MaríaAcosta Gómez | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| PabloGarcíaAcosta | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
The practice is to use one given name and the first surname generally (e.g. "Penélope Cruz" for Penélope Cruz Sánchez); the complete name is reserved for legal, formal and documentary matters. Both surnames are sometimes systematically used when the first surname is very common (e.g.,Federico García Lorca,Pablo Ruiz Picasso orJosé Luis Rodríguez Zapatero) to get a more distinguishable name.[5] In these cases, it is even common to use only the second surname, as in "Lorca", "Picasso" or "Zapatero". This does not affect alphabetization: "Lorca", the Spanish poet, must be alphabetized in an index under "García Lorca", not "Lorca" or "García".
Spanish naming customs were extended to countries under Spanish rule, influencingnaming customs of Hispanic America andPhilippines to different extent.
Currently in Spain, people bear a single or compositegiven name (nombre in Spanish) and twosurnames (apellidos in Spanish).
A composite given name is composed of two (or more) single names; for example,Juan Pablo is considered not to be a first and a second forename, but a single composite forename.[6]
The two surnames refer to each of the parental families. Traditionally, a person's first surname is the father's first surname (apellido paterno), while their second surname is the mother's first surname (apellido materno). For example, if a man namedEduardo Fernández Garrido marries a woman namedMaría Dolores Martínez Ruiz (note that women do not change their name with marriage) and they have a child namedJosé, there are several legal options, but their child would most usually be known asJosé Fernández Martínez.
Spanishgender equality law has allowed surname transposition since 1999,[7] subject to the condition that every sibling must bear the same surname order recorded in theRegistro Civil (civil registry), but there have been legal exceptions. Since 2013, if the parents of a child were unable to agree on the order of surnames, an official would decide which is to come first,[8][9][10] with the paternal name being the default option. The only requirement is that every son and daughter must have the same order of the surnames, so they cannot change it separately. Since June 2017, adopting the paternal name first is no longer the standard method, and parents are required to sign an agreement wherein the name order is expressed explicitly.[11][12][13] The law also grants a person the option, upon reaching adulthood, of reversing the order of their surnames. However, this legislation only applies to Spanish citizens; people of other nationalities are issued the surname indicated by the laws of their original country.[13]
Each of these two surnames can also be composite in itself, with the parts usually linked by:
For example, a person's name might beJuan Pablo Fernández de Calderón García-Iglesias, consisting of a forename (Juan Pablo), a paternal surname (Fernández de Calderón), and a maternal surname (García-Iglesias).
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A man namedJosé Antonio Gómez Iglesias would normally be addressed as eitherseñor Gómez orseñor Gómez Iglesias instead ofseñor Iglesias, becauseGómez is his first surname. Furthermore, Mr. Gómez might be informally addressed as
Very formally, he could be addressed with an honorific such asdon José Antonio ordon José.
It is not unusual, when the first surname is very common, likeGarcía in the example above, for a person to be referred to formally using both family names, or casually by their second surname only. For example,José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (elected President of the Spanish Government in the 2004 and 2008 general elections) is often called simply Zapatero, the name he inherited from his mother's family since Rodríguez is a common surname and may be ambiguous. The same occurs with another former Spanish Socialist leader,Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, with the poet and dramatistFederico García Lorca, and with the painterPablo Ruiz Picasso. As these people's paternal surnames are very common, they are often referred to by their maternal surnames (Rubalcaba, Lorca, Picasso). It would nonetheless be a mistake to index Rodríguez Zapatero under Z or García Lorca under L. (Picasso, who spent most of his adult life in France, is normally indexed under "P".)
In an English-speaking environment, Spanish-named people sometimeshyphenate their surnames to avoid Anglophone confusion or to fill in forms with only one space provided for the last name:[14] for example, U.S. RepresentativeAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is of Puerto Rican heritage, is named "Ocasio-Cortez" because her parents' surnames are Ocasio-Roman and Ocasio-Cortez (née Cortez). She has publicly corrected people who referred to her as "Cortez" rather than "Ocasio-Cortez".[15]
In Spanish-speaking countries, hyphenated surnames arise when someone wants both the paternal and maternal surnames passed to future generations, and the next generation receives the two, hyphenated, as a single (paternal) surname. Occasionally the two are fused into a simple (unhyphenated) name, such as Jovellanos (from Jove and Llanos). Rarely, the two names are left unhyphenated, such as López Portillo, which may lead to confusion.
Parents choose their child'sgiven name, which must be recorded in theRegistro Civil (Civil Registry) to establish their legal identity.[16] With few restrictions, parents can now choose any name; common sources of names are the parents' taste, honouring a relative, theGeneral Roman Calendarnomina (nominal register), and traditional Spanish names. Legislation inSpain under Franco's dictatorship legally limited cultural naming customs to onlyChristian (Jesus, Mary, saints)[17] and typical Spanish names (Álvaro, Jimena, etc.). Although the first part of a composite forename generally reflects the gender of the child, the second personal name need not (e.g.José María Aznar). At present, the only naming limitation is the dignity of the child, who cannot be given an insulting name. Similar limitations applied against diminutive, familiar, and colloquial variants not recognized as names proper, and "those that lead to confusion regarding sex";[18]however, current law[19] allows registration of diminutive names.[20]
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Girls are often namedMaría,[21] honouring theVirgin Mary, by appending either a shrine, place, or religious-concept suffix-name toMaría. In daily life, such women omit the "Mary of the ..." nominal prefix, and use the suffix portion of their composite names as their public, rather than legal,identity. Hence, women withMarian names such asMaría de los Ángeles (María of the Angels),María del Pilar (María of the Pillar), andMaría de la Luz (María of the Light), are normally addressed asÁngeles (Angels),Pilar (Pillar), andLuz (Light); however, each might be addressed asMaría. Nicknames such asMaricarmen forMaría del Carmen,Marisol for "María (de la) Soledad" ("Our Lady of Solitude", the Virgin Mary),Dolores orLola forMaría de los Dolores ("Our Lady of Sorrows"),Mercedes orMerche forMaría de las Mercedes ("Our Lady of Mercy"), etc. are often used. Also, parents can simply name a girlMaría, orMari without a suffix portion.
It is common for a boy's formal name to includeMaría, preceded by a masculine name, e.g.José María Aznar,Juan María Vicencio de Ripperdá orAntonio María Rouco Varela. Equivalently, a girl can be formally namedMaría José , e.g. skierMaría José Rienda, and informally namedMarijose,Mariajo,Majo,Ajo,Marisé or evenJosé in honour of St. Joseph.María as a masculine name is often abbreviated in writing asM. (José M. Aznar),Ma. (José Ma. Aznar), orM.ª (José M.ª Morelos).[22] It is unusual for any names other than the religiously significantMaría andJosé to be used in this way except for the nameJesús that is also very common and can be used asJesús orJesús María for a boy andMaría Jesús for a girl, and can be abbreviated asSus,Chus and other nicknames.
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TheRegistro Civil (Civil Registry) officially records a child's identity as composed of aforename (simple or composite) and the twosurnames; however, a child can be religiouslybaptized with several forenames, e.g.Felipe Juan Froilán de Todos los Santos. Until the 1960s, it was customary to baptize children with three forenames: the first was the main and the only one used by the child; if parents agreed, one of the other two was the name of the day's saint. Nowadays, baptizing with three or more forenames is usually aroyal andnoble family practice.
In Spain married people keep their original surnames (unlike in some near cultures in which they may adopt the spouse's family name as amarried name). In some instances, such as high society meetings, the partner's surname can be added after the person's surnames using the prepositionde (of). An example would be aLeocadia Blanco Álvarez, married to aPedro Pérez Montilla, may be addressed asLeocadia Blanco de Pérez or asLeocadia Blanco Álvarez de Pérez. This format is not used in everyday settings and has no legal value.[23]
Similarly, a widow may be identified using "viuda de" ("widow of" in Spanish) or its abbreviation "vda." for, as inLeocadia Blanco vda. de Pérez.
In the generational transmission of surnames, the paternal surname's precedence eventually eliminates the maternal surnames from the familylineage. Contemporary law (1999) allows the maternal surname to be given precedence, but most people observe the traditional paternal–maternal surname order. Therefore, the daughter and son ofÁngela López Sáenz andTomás Portillo Blanco are usually calledLaura Portillo López andPedro Portillo López but could also be calledLaura López Portillo andPedro López Portillo. The two surnames of all siblings must be in the same order when recorded in theRegistro Civil. Spanish naming customs include theorthographic option of conjoining the surnames with theconjunction particley, ore before a name starting with 'I', 'Hi' or 'Y', (both meaning "and") (e.g.,José Ortega y Gasset,Tomás Portillo y Blanco, orEduardo Dato e Iradier), following an antiquatedaristocratic usage.
Patrilineal surname transmission was not always thenorm in Spanish-speaking societies. Prior to the mid-eighteenth century,[citation needed] when the current paternal-maternal surname combination norm was adopted, Hispanophone societies often practised matrilineal surname transmission, giving children the maternal surname and occasionally giving children a grandparent's surname (borne by neither parent) for prestige – being perceived asgentry – and profit, flattering thematriarch or thepatriarch in hope ofinheriting land. A more recent example can be found in the name ofFrancisco de Asís Franco y Martínez-Bordiú (born 1954), who took first the name of his mother,Carmen Franco, rather than that of his father,Cristóbal Martínez-Bordiú, 10th Marquis of Villaverde, in order to perpetuate the family name of his maternal grandfather, theCaudilloFrancisco Franco.[24]
Not every surname is a single word; such conjoining usage is common with doubled surnames (maternal-paternal), ancestral composite surnamesbequeathed to the following generations – especially when the paternal surname is socially undistinguished.José María Álvarez del Manzano y López del Hierro is an example, his name comprising the composite single nameJosé María and two composite surnames,Álvarez del Manzano andLópez del Hierro. Other examples derive from church place-names such as San José. When a person bears doubled surnames, the means of disambiguation is to inserty between the paternal and maternal surnames.
In case ofillegitimacy – when the child's father either is unknown or refuses to recognize his child legally – the child bears both of the mother's surnames, which may be interchanged.[25]
Occasionally, a person with a common paternal surname and an uncommon maternal surname becomes widely known by the maternal surname. Some examples include the artistPablo Ruiz Picasso, the poetFederico García Lorca, and the politicianJosé Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. With a similar effect, the foreign paternal surname of the Uruguayan writerEduardo Hughes Galeano (his father was British) is usually omitted. (As a boy, however, he occasionally signed his name asEduardo Gius, using a Hispanicized approximation of the English pronunciation of "Hughes".) Such use of the second last name by itself is colloquial, however, and may not be applied in legal contexts.
Also rarely, a person may become widely known by both surnames, with an example being a tennis playerArantxa Sánchez Vicario – whereas her older brothersEmilio andJavier, also professional tennis players, are mainly known only by the paternal surname of Sánchez in everyday life, although they wouldformally be addressed asSánchez Vicario.
WhereBasque and Romance cultures have linguistically long coexisted, the surnames denote the father's name and the (family)house or town/village. Thus the Romancepatronymic and the place-name are conjoined with the prepositional particlede ("from"+"provenance"). For example, in the nameJosé Ignacio López de Arriortúa, the composite surnameLópez de Arriortúa is a single surname, despiteArriortúa being the original family name. This can lead to confusion because the SpanishLópez and the BasqueArriortúa are discrete surnames in Spanish and Basque respectively. This pattern was also in use in other Basque districts, but was phased out in most of the Basque-speaking areas and only remained in place across lands of heavy Romance influence, i.e. some central areas ofNavarre and most ofÁlava. To a lesser extent, this pattern has been also present in Castile, whereBasque-Castilian bilingualism was common in northern and eastern areas up to the 13th century.
A notable example of this system wasJoaquina Sánchez de Samaniego y Fernández de Tejada, with both paternal and maternal surnames coming from this system, joined with any ("and").
In Spanish, thepreposition particlede ("of") is used as aconjunction in two different surname styles, and also used in a kind of placeholder role to disambiguate surnames that might be mistaken as additional forenames. The first style is inpatronymic andtoponymic surname formulæ,[26] e.g.Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba,Pedro López de Ayala, andVasco Núñez de Balboa, as in manyconquistador names.[27]
In names of persons, theprepositional particlede is written in lower-case when the forename has been included, e.g.José Manuel de la Rúa ("of the street") andCunegunda de la Torre ("of the tower"); when the forename has been omitted, thede is capitalized, e.g.doctor De la Rúa andseñora De la Torre.[citation needed]
Bearing thede particle does not necessarily denote a noble family; especially in names from easternCastile,Alava, and western Navarre, thede usually meant simply "from", and was applied to the place-name (town or village) from which the person and his or her ancestors originated. This differs from another practice established in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in whichde could be applied to one's own name as a way of denoting the bearer's noble heritage, to avoid the misperception that he or she was either a Jew or a Moor. In that time, many people, regardless of their true origins, used the particle, e.g.Miguel de Cervantes,Lope de Vega, etc.; moreover, following that fashion, a high noble such asFrancisco Sandoval Rojas called himselfFrancisco de Sandoval y Rojas. During the eighteenth century, the Spanish nobility fully embraced the French custom of usingde as a nobility identifier; however, since many commoners also bore the same particle, the use ofde became unclear. Thus, nobility was emphasised with the surname's lineage.
In the sixteenth century,[citation needed] the Spanish adopted the copulativeconjunctiony ("and") to distinguish a person's surnames; thus the Andalusian Baroque writerLuis de Góngora y Argote (1561–1627), the Aragonese painterFrancisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746–1828), the Andalusian artistPablo Diego Ruiz y Picasso (1881–1973), and the Madrilenian liberal philosopherJosé Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955). In Hispanic America, this spelling convention was common among clergymen (e.g. Salvadoran BishopÓscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez), and sanctioned by theLey de Registro Civil (Civil Registry Law) of 1870, which required birth certificates to indicate the paternal and maternal surnames conjoined withy – thus,Felipe González y Márquez andJosé María Aznar y López are the respective legal names of the Spanish politiciansFelipe González Márquez andJosé María Aznar López; however, unlike inCatalan, this usage is infrequent in Spanish. In thePhilippines,y and its associated usages are retained only in formal state documents such as police records, but is otherwise dropped in favour of a more American-influenced naming order.
The conjunctiony avoids denominational confusion when the paternal surname might appear to be a (first) name: without it, the physiologistSantiago Ramón y Cajal might appear to be namedSantiago Ramón (composite) and surnamedCajal, likewise the juristFrancisco Tomás y Valiente, and the clericVicente Enrique y Tarancón. Without the conjunction, thefootballerRafael Martín Vázquez, when referred to by his surnamesMartín Vázquez mistakenly appears to be forenamedMartín rather thanRafael, whilst, to his annoyance, the linguistFernando Lázaro Carreter occasionally was addressed asDon Lázaro, rather than asDon Fernando (Lázaro can be either forename or surname).
When the conjunctiony is used and the maternal surname begins with ani vowel sound — whether written with the vowelI (Ibarra), the vowelY (Ybarra archaic spelling), or the combinationHi + consonant (Higueras) — Spanisheuphony substitutese in place of the wordy; thus the example of the Spanish statesmanEduardo Dato e Iradier (1856–1921).
To communicate a person'ssocial identity, Spanish naming customs provideorthographic means, such as suffix-letter abbreviations,surname spellings, and place names, which denote and connote the person's place insociety.
p. (father of): A man named like his son may add the lower-case suffixp. (denotingpadre, father) to his surname. An example of this isJosé Luis Lorena, p. , to distinguish him from his sonJosé Luis Lorena; the English analogue is "Sr." (senior).
h. (son of): A man named like his father may append the lower-case suffixh. (denotinghijo, son) to his surname, thus distinguishing himself,Juan Gómez Marcos, h., from his father,Juan Gómez Marcos; the English analogue is "Jr." (junior).
Following theVisigothic invasion of the Iberian peninsula, the local population adopted to a large extent apatronymic naming system: the suffix-icī (aLatingenitive meaningson of) would be attached to the father's forename to create a patronymic for the son.[29][30] This suffix gradually evolved into different local forms, depending on the language. For example, the son ofFernando would be called:
This system was most common in, but not limited to, the central region ofCastile. Bare surnames, i.e. the father's name without the suffix -itz/-ez/-is/-es, can also be found, and are especially common inCatalonia. This said, mass migration in the 20th century has led to a certain levelling of such regional differences.
InCatalan speaking areas, the suffixed surnameFerrandis is most common in the South (theValencian Country) while in the North (Catalonia) the bare surnameFerran is more common. Furthermore, language contact led to the creation of multiple hybrid forms, as evidenced by the multiple Catalano-Castillan surnames, found especially in the Valencian Country:Fernàndez,Fernandis,Fernàndiz,Ferrandez,Ferràniz,Ferranis, etc.
Not every surname that resembles this pattern is patronymic. Due to the lettersz ands being pronounced alike in American dialects of Spanish, many non-patronymic surnames with an-es have come to be written with an-ez. In AmericanSpanish, the-ez spellings ofChávez (Hugo Chávez),Cortez (Alberto Cortez) andValdez (Nelson Valdez) are not patronymic surnames, but simply variant spellings of theIberian Spanish spelling with-es, as in the names ofManuel Chaves,Hernán Cortés andVíctor Valdés. For more on the-z surnames in Spanish seeInfluences on the Spanish language.
A number of the most common surnames with the patronymic suffix -ez:
Anonymousabandoned children were a problem for civil registrars to name. Some such children were named after the town where they were found (toponymic surname). Because most were reared in church orphanages, some were also given the surnamesIglesia orIglesias (church[es]) andCruz (cross).Blanco (with the meaning "blank", rather than "white") was another option. A toponymic first surname might have been followed byIglesia(s) orCruz as a second surname.
Nameless children were sometimes given the surnameExpósito/Expósita (fromLatinexposĭtus, "exposed", meaning "abandoned child"), which marked them, and their descendants,[32] as of a lowcaste orsocial class. Due to this, in 1921 Spanish law started to allow holders of the surnameExpósito to legally change their surname.[33] In theCatalan language, the surnameDeulofeu ("made by God") was often given out to these children, which is similar toDe Dios ("from God") in Castilian.
Furthermore, inAragón abandoned children would receive the surnameGracia ("grace") orde Gracia, because they were thought to survive by thegrace of God.
In Spain, foreign immigrants retain use of their cultural naming customs,[34] but upon becoming Spanishcitizens, they are legally obliged to assume Spanish-style names (one forename and two surnames).[35] If thenaturalized citizen is from a one-surname culture, either their current surname is doubled or their mother'smaiden name is adopted as the second surname. For example, a Briton with the name "Sarah Jane Smith" could become either "Sarah Jane Smith Smith" or "Sarah Jane Smith Jones" upon acquiring Spanish citizenship. Formally, Spanish naming customs would also mean that theforename "Sarah" andmiddle name "Jane" would be treated as a compound forename: "Sarah Jane".
Historically,flamenco artists seldom used their proper names. According to the flamenco guitaristJuan Serrano, this was because flamenco was considered disreputable and they did not want to embarrass their families:
We have to start with the history of the gypsies in Spain. They gained a bad reputation because of the minor crimes they had to commit to survive. They did not have any kind of jobs, they had to do something to live, and of course this created hostility. And Flamenco was the music of the Gypsies, so many high society people did not accept it – they said Flamenco was in the hands of criminals, bandits, et cetera. And the girls, that maybe liked dancing or singing, their parents said, "Oh no, you want to be a prostitute!".
— Juan Serrano, interview inGuitar International, Nov 1987
This tradition of not using one's proper name has persisted to the present day, even though flamenco is now legitimate. Sometimes the artistic name consists of the home town appended to the first name (Manolo Sanlúcar,Ramón de Algeciras); but many, perhaps most, such names are more eccentric: Pepe de la Matrona (because his mother was a midwife);Perico del Lunar (because he had a mole);Tomatito (son of a father known asTomate (tomato) because of his red face);Sabicas (because of his childhood passion for green beans, fromniño de las habicas);Paco de Lucía, born Francisco ("Paco") Gustavo Sánchez Gomes, was known from infancy after his Portuguese mother, Lucía Gomes (de Lucía = [son] of Lucía). And many more. When referring to these artists by their assumed names, it makes no sense to shorten the name to its qualifier, such as "Lucía" or "de Lucía"; Paco, or perhaps "el de Lucía", are the only options.
Many Spanish names can be shortened intohypocoristic, affectionate "child-talk" forms using adiminutive suffix, especially-ito and-cito (masculine) and-ita and-cita (feminine). Sometimes longer than the person's name, anickname is usually derived vialinguistic rules.[36] However, in contrast to English use, hypocoristic names in Spanish are only used to address a person in a very familiar environment – the only exception being when the hypocoristic is an artistic name (e.g.Nacho Duato born Juan Ignacio Duato). The common English practice of using a nickname in the press or media, or even on business cards (such asBill Gates instead of William Gates), is not accepted in Spanish, being considered excessively colloquial. The usages vary by country and region; these are some usual names and their nicknames:
The official recognition of Spain'sother written languages –Catalan,Basque, andGalician – legally allowed the autonomous communities to re-establish their vernacularsocial identity, including the legal use of personal names in the local languages and written traditions; these had been banned since 1938.[37] This has sometimes been accomplished by re-spelling names to change Castilian Spanish forms into their original languages.
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The Basque-speaking territories (theBasque Autonomous Community andNavarre) follow Spanish naming customs (given names + two family names, the two family names being usually the father's and the mother's).
The given names are officially in one language or the other (Basque or Spanish), but often people use a translated or shortened version. A bilingual Basque-Spanish speaker will not necessarily bear a Basque name, and a monolingual Spanish speaker can use a Basque name or a Basque hypocoristic of an official Spanish name; e.g. aFrancisco (official Spanish name) may be known asPatxi (Basque hypocoristic).
Some Basque-language names and surnames are foreign transliterations into the Basque tongue, e.g.,Ander (English: "Andrew"; Spanish:Andrés),Mikel (English: "Michael"; Spanish:Miguel), orAne (English: "Anne"; Spanish:Ana). In some cases, the name'soriginal-language denotation is translated to Basque, e.g.,Zutoia andZedarri denote the SpanishPilar (English: "Pillar"). Moreover, some originally Basque names, such asXabier andEneko (English "Xavier" and "Inigo"), have been transliterated into Spanish (Javier andÍñigo).
Recently, Basque names without a direct equivalent in other languages have become popular, e.g.Aitor (a legendary patriarch),Hodei ("cloud"),Iker ("to investigate"), andAmaia ("the end"). Some Basque names without a definable meaning in Spanish are unique to the Basque language, for instance,Eneko,Garikoitz,Urtzi. After Franco's death and the restoration of democracy in Spain, many Basque adults changed their Spanish names to their Basque equivalents, e.g. fromMiguel toMikel.
A source for modern Basque names isSabino Arana'sDeun-Ixendegi Euzkotarra ("Basque saint-name collection", published in 1910). Instead of the traditional Basque adaptations of Romance names, he proposed others he made up, and which in his opinion were truer to the originals and adapted better to Basque phonology. For example,his brother Luis becameKoldobika, from FrankishHlodwig. The traditional namesPeru (from Spanish "Pedro"),Pello orPiarres (from French "Pierre"), all meaning "Peter", becameKepa from Aramaic כיפא (Kepha). He believed that the suffix-[n]e was inherently feminine, and new names likeNekane ("pain"+ne, "Dolores") orGarbiñe ("clean"+ne, "Immaculate [Conception]") are frequent among Basque females.
Basque surnames usually denote the paternal house (in its literal sense of a dwelling place) of the bearer; e.g.Etxebarria – "the new house", frometxe (house) +barri (new) +a (the), denotes "related to a farmhouse of that name"; in the same way,Garaikoetxea – "the house in the heights",garai ("height") +etxe ("house") +a (the). Sometimes, surnames denote not the house itself but a characteristic of the place, e.g.Saratxaga – "willow-place", fromsaratze ("willow") +-aga ("place of");Loyola, fromloi ("mud") +ola ("iron smithery");Arriortua – "stone orchard", fromharri ("stone") +ortua ("orchard"). Before the 20th century all Basque men were considerednobles (indeed, some Basque surnames, e.g.Irujo orMedoza, were related to some of the oldest Spanish noble families), and many of them used their status to emigrate with privileges to other regions of the Spanish Empire, especially the Americas; thus some Basque surnames became common in the Spanish-American world, e.g.Mendoza – "cold mountain", frommendi ("mountain" +hotza ("cold");Salazar – "old hall", fromsala ("hall") +zahar ("old"). Until 1978, Spanish was the single official language of the Spanish civil registries, and Basque surnames had to be registered according to the Spanish phonetical rules (for example, the Spanish "ch" sound merges the Basque "ts", "tx", and "tz", and someone whose surname inStandard Basque would be "Krutxaga" would have to write it as "Cruchaga", the letter "k" also not being used in Spanish). Although the restoration of democracy ended this policy and allowed surnames to be officially changed into their Basque orthography, surnames of Basque origin now often have more than one spelling, even within the same family: a father born before 1978 would be surnamed "Echepare" and his children, "Etxepare". This policy even changed the usual pronunciation of some Basque surnames. For instance, in Basque, the letter "z" maintained a sibilant "s"-like sound, while Spanish changed it; thus, a surname such asZabala in Basque is properly read similar to sabala" (Basque pronunciation:[s̻abala]), but in Spanish, where the "z" denotes a "th" sound ([θ]), it would be read as "Tha-bala" (Spanish pronunciation:[θaˈβala]). However, since the letter "z" exists in Spanish, the registries did not force the Zabalas to transliterate their surname.
In the Basque provinces ofBiscay andGipuzkoa, it was uncommon to take a surname from the place (town or village) where one resided, unless one was a foundling; in general, people bearing surnames such asBilbao (after the Basque city ofBilbao) are descendants of foundlings. However, in the Basque province ofAlava and, to a lesser extent, inNavarre, it was common to add one's birth village to the surname using the Spanish particlede to denote atoponymic, particularly when the surname was a common one; for instance, someone whose surname wasLopez and whose family was originally from the valley ofAyala could employLopez de Ayala as a surname. This latter practice is also common inCastile.
Basque compound surnames are relatively common, and were created by combining two discrete surnames, e.g.Elorduizapaterietxe –Elordui +Zapaterietxe, a practice denoting family allegiances or the equal importance of both families. Since compound surnames could themselves be used to create new compounds, this custom sometimes resulted in incredibly long surnames. For example, the longest surname recorded in Spain is the compound Basque nameBurionagonatotoricagageazcoechea,[38] formed byBuriona+Gonatar +Totorika +Beazcoetxea.
Basque nationalist leader Sabino Arana pioneered a naming custom of transposing the name-surname order to what he thought was the proper Basque language syntax order; e.g. the woman namedMiren Zabala would be referred to asZabala'taŕ Miren – the surname first, plus the-tar suffix denoting "from a place", and then the name. Thus,Zabala'taŕ Miren means "Miren, of the Zabala family". The change in the order is effected because in the Basque language, declined words (such asZabala'taŕ) that apply to a noun are placed before the noun itself; another example of this would be his pen name,Arana ta Goiri'taŕ Sabin. This Basque naming custom was used in nationalist literature; in formal official documents, the Castilian naming order is observed.
TheCatalan-speaking territories mainly abide by Spanish naming customs, though discrete surnames are usually joined with the wordi ("and") instead of the Spanishy; this practice is very common in formal contexts. For example, the formerpresident of the Generalitat de Catalunya (Government of Catalonia) is formally calledEl Molt Honorable SenyorPere Aragonès i Garcia. The national language policy enumerated in article 19.1 of Law 1/1998 stipulates that "the citizens of Catalonia have the right to use the proper regulation of their Catalan names and surnames and to introduce the conjunction between surnames".[citation needed]
The correction, translation, and change of surnames are regulated by theRegistro Civil (Civil Registry) in decree 138/2007 of 26 June, modifying decree 208/1998 of 30 July, which regulates the accreditation of the linguistic correctness of names. Decree 138/2007 of 26 July regulates the issuance of language-correction certificates fortranslated Catalan names by theInstitut d'Estudis Catalans (Institute of Catalan Studies) in Barcelona. Nevertheless, there are Catalan surnames that conform to neither the current spelling rules nor the traditionally correct Catalanspelling rules; a language-correction certification can be requested from the institute, for names such as these:[39]
Many Catalan names are shortened tohypocoristic forms using only the final portion of the name (unlike Spanish, which mostly uses only the first portion of the name), and with a diminutive suffix (-et, -eta/-ita). Thus, shortened Catalan names taking the first portion of the name are probably influenced by the Spanish tradition. The influence of Spanish in hypocoristics is recent since it became a general fashion only in the twentieth centuryand especially sinceFrancisco Franco's dictatorship[citation needed]; example Catalan names are:
TheGalician-speaking areas also abide by the Spanish naming customs. The main differences are the usage of Galician given names and surnames.
Most Galician surnames have their origin in localtoponymies, including Galician regions (Salnés <Salnés,Carnota,Bergantiños), towns (Ferrol,Noia), parishes or villages (asAndrade). Just like elsewhere, many surnames were also generated from jobs or professions (Carpinteiro 'carpenter',Cabaleiro 'Knight',Ferreiro 'Smith',Besteiro 'Crossbowman'), physical characteristics (Gago 'Twangy',Tato 'Stutterer',Couceiro 'Tall and thin',Bugallo 'fat',Pardo 'Swarthy'), or origin of the person (Franco andFrancés 'French',Portugués 'Portuguese').
Although many Galician surnames have historically been adapted to Spanish phonetics and orthography, they are still clearly recognizable as Galician words:Freijedo, Spanish adaptation offreixedo 'place with ash-trees';Seijo fromseixo 'stone';Doval fromdo Val 'of the Valley';Rejenjo fromReguengo, Galician evolution of local Latin-Germanic wordRegalingo 'Royal property'.
Specially relevant are the Galician surnames that originated from medievalpatronymics, present in local documentation since the 9th century, and popularized from the 12th century on. Although many of them were historically adapted to Spanish orthography,[40] phonetics and traditions, many are still characteristically Galician; the most common ones are:
Some of them (namely Páez, Méndez, Vázquez) show characteristic Galician dropping of intervocalic -l-, -d-, -g- and -n- (althoughLugo is the only province in Spain with a majority of people surnamedLópez).
Some common Galician names are:[41]
Nicknames are usually obtained from the end of a given name, or through derivation. Common suffixes include masculine -iño, -ito (as inSito, fromLuisito), -echo (Tonecho, fromAntonecho) and -uco (Farruco, fromFrancisco); and feminine -iña, -ucha/uxa (Maruxa,Carmucha, fromMaria andCarme), -uca (Beluca, fromIsabeluca), and -ela (Mela, fromCarmela).
As the provincialSurname distribution map (above) indicates,Mohamed is an often-occurringsurname in the autonomous Mediterranean North African cities ofCeuta andMelilla (respectively registered 10,410 and 7,982 occurrences),[42]Hispanophone Muslims use the Spanish "Mohamed" spelling for "Muhammad". As such, it is often a component ofArabic names for men; hence, many Ceutan and Melillan Muslims share surnames despite not sharing a common ancestry. Furthermore,Mohamed (Muhammad) is the most popular name for new-born boys,[43] thus it is not unusual to encounter a man namedMohamed Mohamed Mohamed: the first occurrence is the given name, the second occurrence is the paternal surname, and the third occurrence is the maternal surname.[44]
In English, theChicago Manual of Style recommends that Spanish and Hispanophone names beindexed by the family name. When there are two family names, the indexing is done under the father's family name; this would be the first element of the surname if the father's and mother's or husband's family names are joined by ay. Depending upon the person involved, the particlede may be treated as a part of a family name or it may be separated from a family name. The indexing of Hispanophone names differs from that of Portuguese orLusophone names, where the final element of the name is indexed because the Portuguese custom is for the father's surname to follow, rather than precede, the mother's. The effect is that the father's surname is the one indexed for both Spanish and Portuguese names.[45]
Articles 53 & 54
Puedes usar sólo el primer apellido si es poco frecuente. Ejemplo: Germán Oramas
Articles 53 & 54 (in Spanish)
Si la filiación está determinada por ambas líneas, el padre y la madre de común acuerdo podrán decidir el orden de transmisión de su respectivo primer apellido, antes de la inscripción registral. Si no se ejercita esta opción, regirá lo dispuesto en la ley. El orden de apellidos inscrito para el mayor de los hijos regirá en las inscripciones de nacimiento posteriores de sus hermanos del mismo vínculo. (If the affiliation is determined by both lines, the father and mother may by agreement determine the order of transmission of its respective first name before registration. If this option is not exercised, the provisions of law shall apply. The order of names registered for the eldest sibling governed the registration in subsequent siblings of the same link.)
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
En los supuestos de nacimiento con una sola filiación reconocida, ésta determina los apellidos, pudiendo el progenitor que reconozca su condición de tal determinar, al tiempo de la inscripción, el orden de los apellidos. (In those cases where only one affiliation is recognized, it is this affiliation that determines the surnames, being the recognizing parent's right to choose, at the moment of inscription, the order of the surnames.)
fernandez > fernanditz [...] Onomastika batzordeak Olatzagutian izandako bileran onartutako deitura
