I'll name that child in three!

Try telling a Spanish insurance company's price calculator that you've been driving since you were 17. They won't have it. Spaniards can't get a driving licence till they're 18 so the Spaniards believe that everywhere in the world starts driving at 18. The insurance company's database is built around the Spanish way of doing things. It's a good job I'm not from South Dakota.

It used to be the same for foreign names. I'd want to register on a Spanish webpage. I was asked for both my surnames. As I don't have two surnames, and as it was often a required field, I'd try with an X or a dash. Sometimes that didn't work; I'm still Chris Thompson Nil on a fair few databases. It's a problem that has almost gone away nowadays. There's still space for two surnames but only the first will be compulsory. This is because, as I'm sure you know, most Spaniards have two surnames; one from the mother and the other from the father. The usual order is father's name first, mother's second. So Juan Ortega Perez and Sara Blanes Hidalgo have sex that results in baby Nerea. Traditionally Nerea would be Nerea Ortega Blanes. In everyday circumstances she would be Nerea Ortega. If she wrote a book it would be filed, surname wise, in the Os. However, because her mum is feisty and because her dad wants to be a modern man, they may choose to call her Nerea Blanes Ortega; the law changed to allow that in 2017. When Nerea gets to 18, if she doesn't like the order her parents chose, she has the right to change her surnames around. There are lots of variations on this basic idea but let's keep it simple.

I'd always presumed this double surname thing went back hundreds of years but it turns out that the codification of double surnames is relatively recent. In fact the choice of surnames in Spain has traditionally been a complete free for all. There was a general understanding that the surname couldn't be malicious, so naming your child, toilet brush, for instance, wasn't on. Malicious surnames aside the system was completely random. Usually, the first born adopted the name of the father and the rest of the brothers or sisters adopted other family surnames. This would mean that siblings might have a variety of surnames. There was a tendency for boys to take the surname of their father and for girls to take a surname from the mother or another woman in the family. As you may imagine this could cause a great deal of confusion for anyone trying to keep tabs on the population. 

In the distant past Spain was made up of lots of different kingdoms. One of the biggest was Castile. By the 16th Century the rich Castilians had started to use the double surname method. My guess is that they did it mainly for matters of inheritance and property rights. That system was also adopted by the Basques about the same time. It made administration simpler. By 1833 this system of two names was very common so that the first Spanish census, in 1857, had boxes for the paternal and maternal surnames. When the civil registry was established in 1871 they continued the two box custom but it wasn't till 1889, when the first Spanish Civil Code (A civil code is a set of rules and laws about how individuals relate to private and public bodies) was established, that it became compulsory for children to carry the surnames of both parents. This same system of double surnames was largely adopted in Latin America too because of their close links to Spain. Immigrants to Spain who take Spanish nationality are required to register two surnames

As an example of this change in the pattern of surnames I thought I'd use some old examples of famous Spanish names who only had one surname because they were named before the double barreling became the norm. I thought of Cervantes, the author, of Hernán Cortés and of Francisco Pizarro, conquistadores both. I realised that they were all men but I couldn't think of a single historical Spanish woman from the 15th or 16th or 17th Centuries who wasn't either a royal or a religious personality - such is the power of patriarchy. So, men as examples but, when I checked their names, it turned out that their names were not constructed, as I expected, following the John Smith or Akosua Busia model. The author of Don Quixote (El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha if you prefer) was Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. The Mexico man was Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano and the bloke who conquered, what is now largely, Peru was Francisco Pizarro González. None of the simple given name plus family name for them.

So double barrelled may now be the norm but how did the surnames first arise? Bear in mind the thing above about families using several different surnames and the thing below about forming surnames - so the fat one got called Fatty, the healer got called Healer and the one from the valley got called From the Valley etc. Indeed lots of surnames were simply made up and came from nicknames or descriptive features: Rubio, blonde, Calvo, bald and Delgado, thin, for instance.

Surnames that are associated with trades and jobs are common in Spain as they are in English, The Coopers, Archers and Fletchers of the UK become the Zapateros, Herreros, and Pastores - shoemakers, smiths and  shepherds of Spain. I always think it's a good thing that surnames are now well established or it we'd all be stuck with things like "Hello Ms. User Experience Designer" or "How do you do Mr. Sustainability Manager?"

Lots of Spanish surnames are patronymic, that is a name derived from the name of a father or ancestor. These sort of names are common all over the world, for instance the Icelanders with surnames formed by adding -son to the father's name for sons - Magnus Magnusson or -dottir for daughters as in Björk Guðmundsdóttir. In Spanish these are the names that end in ez, oz or iz - Muñoz, Sánchez, Martínez or Albéniz. Sancho's lad, Martin's son etc. We Britons do it too, Thompson, Robertson, Davidson.

Then there are the  toponymic surnames, that is to say, names that come from a town or other place. Some of those are simply place names - Peñaranda, Catalán, Sevillano and the like exactly as we Britons do with Sarah Lancashire or Jodie Bedford. Then there are lots which use de or del or de la which means of the or from the. So María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, of the water meadow, Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, of the castle, Vicente del Bosque, of the wood and Luis de la Fuente, from the fountain.

So, the next time your middle name gets used as your first surname, if you  didn't know, well, now you do.

We'll have to call her something!

Lots of Spaniards find my name difficult to pronounce and so they tend to Hispanicize it. I'm Crees-toff-air. I know that Ruth gets Root and I know at least one person who generally uses his name in the Spanish form, Ricardo rather than Richard. He says it's easier than repeatedly correcting the mispronunciation. 

Sometimes, of course, there is pure racism in the mispronunciation of a name, as in the case of Trump supporters and Kamala Harris or the renaming of someone because their name is "unpronounceable". Suggesting that a name is unsayable is a not too subtle form of belittling people by belittling the culture they come from. Last year's Twitter storm over the University teacher who suggested to Phuc Bui Diem Nguyen that she anglicised her name, because it sounded like an insult in English, comes to mind.

Anyway, although the politics of names might be an interesting post let's get back to where I started. 

I was doing one of my online italki sessions this morning, with Miriam, and we got to talking about pets having human type names. From there we drifted to names in general. We talked about how several names have a sort of internationalism behind them. Juan may be the Spanish equivalent of John, just as Vanya and Sion and Johann and Giovanni are in other countries, but there are lots of Spanish names that don't have that same correspondence with British names. For example I'm sure that most British people, living in Spain, know at least one Jesús but I don't think there's an Anglo equivalent. In much the same way Nacho, from Ignacio, might turn up in a PG Wodehouse book as Ignatius (and in the Cate Blanchett book of baby names) but it's not, exactly what you'd call a common name. 

Then, of course, we got onto how names have fashions. Teachers see this all the time. A class of five year olds might have several repeat names like Ryan and Brandon or Tiffany and Megan. We all know names that had brief popularity and now give us the approximate age of the particular person. Remember that spate of short "Victorian" names; the Emmas and Janes, Joshuas and Nathans? This didn't use to be the case in Spain because neither the Roman Catholic Church nor the Register Office were keen for someone to start calling their children Aleph, Apple, Blanket, Speck Wildhorse or Tu (all names used by "stars" for their offspring). There has always been plenty of choice for Spanish parents anyway because any old saint's name would do (and there are a lot of saints). Most Spaniards didn't want to call their children Alipio, Bonifacio, Nélia or Wulstana though so names like José, Carmen, Antonio, Manuel, María and Josefa became the norm. Those and the myriad of similar names that we bump into all the time.

Back at our chat Miriam told me that nowadays the restraints on names have generally been lifted and, in the new liberal climate, Basque names have become trendy in Spain. I just had a look at some of those web pages that suggest names for your new-born and it's true that there are pages and pages of Basque suggestions some of which I've bumped into - Aitor, Leire, Eloi, Nerea, Ainhoa and Ferran for example. There are lots of other "nationalist" names too, be they Catalan, like Carme or Enric, Galician like Uxía, Noa and Antía, or Valenciano like Bertomeu and Tonica. There are unisex names too but in suggesting names like René, Paz and Yeray as being usable for boys or girls we're straying into the Vivian, Beverly, Carol and Ainsley territory where, whatever the experts say, there is a different perception of the gender of those names at street level. 

Now, finally, I get to where this post has been going all along. What are the hip Spanish names of the moment? Well on pure statistics for girls it's Lucía, Sofía, Martina, María, Julia, Paula, Valeria, Emma, Daniela, and Carla whilst for the for boys it's Hugo, Mateo, Martín, Lucas, Leo, Daniel, Alejandro, Manuel, Pablo and Álvaro.

Just to round it off the most common names in the population in general are María Carmen, María, Carmen, Ana María, Josefa, María Pilar and Isabel on one side and Antonio, Manuel, José, Francisco, David, Juan and Javier on the other. Family name wise Garcia, González, Lopez and Sanchez head the list so if you know a María Carmen García or an Antonio Gonzalez you are not alone.

Behind the name

Emilio Martínez Sáez. One time mayor of Pinoso who gave his name to our local theatre

When we lived in Cambridgeshire there used to be lots of "jokes" about Fen dwellers, in particular about Chatteris. Jokes to to do with interbreeding and the idea that, at birth, if a family had a surfeit of boys and a lack of girls then you found a family who were baby boy poor and baby girl rich and traded. I presume that Spaniards say, or at least said, something similar about country folk.

As I'm sure you know Spaniards have two family names. Usually that's one from the dad and one from the mum. Be warned if you decide to adopt Spanish nationality and you're surname deficient you will need to choose an extra. 

So you don't need to be a Royal and marry your brother/sister or even your cousin to end up with two surnames which are the same. All you need is to stay off Tinder and stay around the same area for a while. 

I'm reading a book about Pinoso written by a local bloke called Luis Doménech Yáñez. It's good fun; a bit sugary but interesting and entertaining. There's a list of the 106 mayors of Pinoso between 1812 and 2005 - all of them were men. I added the 107th, our current mayor, Lázaro Azorín Salar. That list of 106 includes mayors who were elected twice but not for consecutive terms. Then I did a bit of an analysis of the surnames. There have been 22 mayors with the name Albert as either their first or second surname. There have been 16 Ricos and 12 Verdus. Other surnames with more than 5 appearances include Peréz, Mira, Carbonell, Tortosa, Payá and Blanes. Anyone who lives in or does business here in Pinoso will recognise those family names. In fact I was a bit surprised that names like Domenech, Brotons and Ochoa weren't more common in the list. 

I was a bit disappointed that only 5 mayors doubled up their surname: Albert Albert (twice), Rico Rico, Verdú Verdú and Mira Mira.

Living here first names like Mariano, Isidro, Lorenzo, Emilio, Pascual or Rafael don't sound any stranger than Oliver, George or Grayson but there were some great first names in the list of mayors: Nivardo, Faustino, Dimas, Melecio, Hermelando, Evedasto, Agapito, Amador, Plausides, Antenor, Demetrio, Antoliano and Perfecto. 

Future Culebrón cats be warned!

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I can't imagine that anyone is interested but here are all the surnames. I'm sure there are errors in my transcription for which I apologise: Albert, Alfonso, Amorós, Azorín, Baus, Berenguer, Blanes, Blaquer, Brotóns, Calpena, Carbonell, Cerdá, De los Cobos, Del Pino, Domenech, Domingo, Durante, Falco, Gonzálvez, Graciá, Guardiola, Herrero, Huesca, Jordán, Jover, Juárez, López, Lucas, Maestre, Malhuenda, Martínez, Mauricio, Menda, Mendaro, Mira, Molina, Navarro, Ochoa, Ortega, Payá, Peréz, Poveda, Prats, Ramírez, Rico, Sáez, Salar, Sanchez, Tormo, Tormos, Tortosa, Verdú, Vicente, Vidal and Yánez.

Names are not always what they seem

My latest book is a political biography about the bloke who was President of Spain, on the losing side, in the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War. I heard it reviewed on a podcast I listen to. Normally, when I read or hear about a potential book to read I download a sample to my eBook or save it to a wants list so that, when the time comes to buy something, I have a few queued up ready to compare and contrast. Like all the books I read in Spanish I will forget the title and author. Spanish names just don't stick. I've often had conversations with Spaniards asking if I've read something. I deny all knowledge but then, as they describe the content, I have to admit that I have.

I'd heard mention of a book by Benjamin Black on the Spanish radio; it was being offered as a competition prize. It turns out that Benjamin Black is a pen name for the Irish writer John Banville. I had never heard his name before yet I have no trouble at all remembering it. Why do I remember John Banville just as easily as I forget Josefina Carabias? I suppose the answer is because I'm British and the name John Banville (or Benjamin Black) has a resonance that a Spanish name doesn't. Of course it may be another sign of the years passing like my increasingly frequent visits to the toilet.

It's the same for Spaniards - namewise not bladderwise. My second name John doesn't flow properly for the majority of Spanish people who have to write it down. They often write Jhon instead which seems better, probably righter, to them. Spaniards typically have two surnames - dad's first and mum's second (though there's no problem with reversing them). So if I were named the Spanish way I'd be Christopher Thompson Marriot or maybe Christopher Marriot Thompson. Thompson was my dad's surname and Marriot my mum's maiden surname. Because I have two forenames - Christopher John - but only one surname - Thompson - lots of Spaniards presume that my first surname is John and my second surname is Thompson. Traditionally the first surname is used in address. Pablo Iglesias Turrión, one of our vice presidents, is usually referred to as Pablo Iglesias, for example. So I get lots of emails and post addressed to Sr. Christopher Jhon.

Old whotsisname

In the dialogues, in Spanish language text books, the characters all have names like Francisco Garcia and Maria Hernandez. It's true there are plenty of Marias and Franciscos in Spain. They are often disguised though. Many of the Marias are, for instance, Maria Luisa or Maria Dolores or Maria Mercedes so that they become Marisa, Lola or Merche whilst Francisco is Paco or Kiko. José Marias are Chemas. Hard going for the novice but not so different from the confusion that is Rob, Bob and Bobby or Chas, Charlie and Chuck. Christopher Marlowe was Kit after all - Kit Thompson anyone?

It may be true that Garcia, Gonzalez, Cueva, Rodríguez and Lopez are the most common Spanish surnames nationwide but it seems to me that nobody, whose name you want to remember, is that easy. To give a random example the authors of the present Spanish Constitution were Gabriel Cisneros, Miguel Herrero y Rodríguez de Miñón, José Pedro Pérez Llorca, Manuel Fraga, Gregorio Peces-Barba, Miguel Roca Junyent and Jordi Solé Tura. The woman who does the gossip show that Maggie watches is called Anne Igartiburu (Basque name) and the Spanish national football coach also has a Basque name, Julen Lopetegui. Other regions have local names too, so a Carlos becomes a Carles in Catalan like the honorary Belgian Carles Puigdemont. Sometimes the names themselves are straightforward enough but they are a bit on the long side. Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría is the vice president of the current conservative government and, in the last socialist government, we had a María Teresa Fernández de la Vega Sanz. Neither of them of them are exactly Antonio Garcia or Maria Carmen González. Antonio and Maria Carmen are the most common first names, at present, amongst the Spanish population and Garcia and González the most popular surnames. By the way the most chosen names for newborns at the moment are Hugo and Lucia.

In Yorkshire, when I was a lad, there were lots of Sykes, Crossleys and Thorntons and around Pinoso we have Deltells, Alberts, Domenechs, Espinosas, Ricos, Miras, Escandells, Brotons and Carbonells as well as many more. When couples marry the children get a surname that is a combination of both surnames. If John Smith married Mary Bown they could choose either Peter Smith Brown or Peter Brown Smith for their son Peter with the Smith Brown order being the more traditional. A walk around the local cemetery reveals a veritable treasure trove of Carbonell Carbonell, Brotons Brotons and Rico Miras.