I’m thinking of some place name in California, like Marina del Rey, or Del Mar (presumably meaning Marina of the King and Of The Sea, respectively). But I don’t think I’ve seen these types of contractions used in “real” Spanish. For instance, the official name of El Salvador is El Republica De El Salvador, and not R. Del Salvador. So my question is whether the del contraction is ever used in contemporary Spanish, or if it’s obsolete. Or, if there are still dialects where it’s used.
Yes, it’s a contraction of de ‘of’ and el ‘the’. It means ‘of the’. The same contraction is del in Italian, du in French, and do in Portuguese.
The two parts of the country name El Salvador make a unit of meaning by themselves that is more than just an ordinary phrase, a proper name that can’t be broken up. If you were using it lowercased as just a common-noun phrase, then you could say “del salvador.” E.g. Jesucristo es el nombre del salvador para los cristianos.
Interestingly, in French no such respect is given to proper nouns - the article gets contracted just like any other noun.
Le Havre -> je viens du Havre. (du = de + le)
Yeah, it’s just like saying “don’t” instead of “do not” in English.
Over here on the west coast, we have a chain of Mexican fast food restaurants called “Taco Del Mar”. They make the best burritos I’ve ever tasted.
Mmm… Burritos.
Taco of the Sea… I’d love to hear Jessica Simpson’s take on that place 
Or the album Café del mar, some of the best music I’ve ever listened to. 
Although there’s a contraction of ‘de’ and ‘el’ there isn’t one for ‘de’ and ‘la’ (or there could be but I’ve never heard of it).
And then there’s the fictitious Florida retirement community where Jerry’s parents lived in Seinfeld: Del Boca Vista. Literally: Of the Mouth View.
With the difference that, with the exception of proper names as indicated in the case of El Salvador, the contraction is always used, in both formal and informal usage. In formal writing in English, contractions such as don’t are frowned upon.
Also, a + el (to the) contracts to al.
Del Boca Vista should be De La Boca Vista, if it were real Spanish. Boca is feminine, and as mentioned before, *la * does not contract.
Good point. I never thought of it before, but it reminds me of that last Odd Couple movie, which centers around the wedding of Felix’s daughter and Oscar’s son (or vice versa). The wedding takes place in California, and in the writing of the script, Neil Simon badly jumbles articles and genders of Spanish place names. A bit patronizing and disrespectful, I thought.
So the town I grew up in, Del City, Oklahoma, means of the city, and one of my favorite burger joints there, Del Rancho, means of the ranch.
Actually, I think the town was named after the founder’s daughter, Delaphane (?!)
No, there isn’t. De el is contracted to del because the one ends and the other begins with a vowel. De la has a consonant breaking it up. A el is contracted to al, but a la is not contracted.
On the same note, the conjunction y is changed to e and the conjunction o is changed to u if the next word begins with an i or an o respectively.
In Italian, di and la coalesce to form the contraction della. Maybe that’s what you were thinking of.
So Della Reese’s name means “Of The Reese.” Makes sense, I guess.
In the movie LA Stories the hotel in Santa Barbera was “El Pollo del Mar”
