I’ve been working on a book with my writing partner and found that there was a problem with the names of several characters. The characters are Hispanic and while it’s set in an alternate timeline, there’s no historical reason for naming conventions to be wildly different. Let’s hypothetically call the patriarch of this family Ernesto Rivera González, who married Francisca Cortés Ruz. My writing partner would have then named their daughter Mirta Ruz González.
From what I understood of naming conventions, this was incorrect. Just to be safe, I did research to back this up. I told my writing partner that if they’re the González family, then the father’s name should actually be Ernesto González Rivera and the daughter would then be Mirta González Cortés. My partner agreed with me and changed this, but a friend insists that, in fact, the names were perfect before. She says that it’s Spanish tradition for the mother’s maiden name to be taken as a middle name, with the father’s last name at the end. As this friend is Puerto Rican, she seems to be a better authority on the topic than me, and yet what she’s saying is the exact opposite of everything I have ever read about Spanish names. What I had suggested seems to be very obvious and easy to see, but I’ve been told that I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Is every bit of research I did completely bogus, or is this friend wrong? It’s a minor thing and not very important compared to the rest of the book, but it’s going to bug me until I’m sure the characters are named properly.
So Pedro Jose Perez Padron marries Maria Ana Morales Meinjar. Their son would be Juan Alberto Perez Morales. Same for a girl.
Some Puerto Ricans follow the US tradition (with mom’s maiden name as a middle name, hyphenated last names and all that), but that is not the norm in most of Latin America
ETA: Second names are more or less common in different countries and it seems to me that their use is in decline. Many people tend to use the name of some recently deceased relative, but this also varies wildly.
From what I understand of your example, the daughter should be Mirta Rivera Cortes.
Sapo, thanks. That’s exactly how I’d understood it to be, but having her insist this was the proper way to do it made me wonder if, perhaps, I’d been living in my own alternate universe. Part of my issue was that the family was repeatedly referred to as the “Gonzales” family, but the father’s surname actually appeared to be “Rivera.”
Most likely then, she simply didn’t realize her family was following an Americanized tradition.
Also consider that it’s increasingly popular in the Spanish-speaking world – at least in Mexico – to drop the mother’s name in casual conversation. “Margarita Vázquez Reynoso,” although her full, legal name, will generally just be “Margarita Vázquez” in common parlance and in her professional life.
Remember el presidente Fox? Vicente Fox? First mention in a newspaper article might use his whole name, Vicente Fox Quesada, but the headlines would spout Fox, and further references in the newspaper article would refer to Fox, not Quesada.
Indeed. Most commonly, one only uses the first family name (the father’s). Pedro Jose Perez Villalba then will be addressed as Pedro Perez. Using the full four part name is normally reserved for official use (legal documents, medical forms, etc).
CaerieD, in your example, the family of Ernesto Rivera Gonzalez (son of Mr Rivera with Ms Gonzalez) would be the Rivera family (Ernesto, wife and children). Not the Gonzalez family.
Weird, Sapo is correct, but I’ve never even encountered PuertoRicans who follow the Americanized convention (unless, of course, they’re in the states, not in Puerto Rico)… I wonder from what town (or class status) she is… Heck, even at SCHOOL they taught us the way Sapo describes… and on the legal forms and all the paperwork that you write out set it out that way… Says a Puerto Rican born and raised 18 years on the island, metro area, family scattered around the island, educated in both public and private schools.
The only thing that I can think about is that in some cases, socially, not legally, a woman (say Ms. Jones) marries a man (Mr Smith) and tells others to address her Mrs. Jones of Smith… but legally, her name is still Jones… And her kids would be Smith Jones, not “Jones Smith”.
Sapo, that’s the problem. They are the Gonzales family, which is why the name was wrong and I had to point it out to my partner that the order had been messed up. If she wants to make reference to Mr. Gonzales and then at one point his full name is mentioned as being Ernesto Jose Rivera Gonzales, that’s wrong.
…not that they’re likely to have their full names tossed out often, but I’m very anal. I needed all my bases covered.
I’m not sure where she’s from in Puerto Rico or when she came here, since she’s my writing partner’s friend and I don’t know her well. She might have just been trying to mess with my head, for all I know. I’m just relieved to know I knew WTH I was talking about.
When I learned Spanish, we were taught to use a double surname consisting of the father’s paternal surname and the mother’s paternal surname, separated by a “y,” the Spanish word for “and.” I.e., the son of Gaspar Rodriguez y Castillo and Rafaela Campos y Guerrero would be named Joaquin Rodriguez y Campos. The grandmaternal names - Gaspar’s Mama Castillo and Rafaela’s Mama Guerrero - are not passed down to the child.
You can add middle names to this mix, i.e. Gaspar Julio Rodriguez y Castillo marries Rafaela Teresa Campos y Guerrero and they have a kid named Joaquin Rolando Rodriguez y Campos.
If you don’t use the “y” convention, I think you run the risk of confusing the middle name with the paternal surname. I’m wondering if that’s what your Puerto Rican friend did, i.e. assumed that “Rivera” and “Cortes” were non-heritable middle names, rather than paternal surnames as you intended them to be.
My Puerto Rican teacher taught me this, by the way, and she also taught me the “de” convention for married women that KarlGrenze mentions, although I have to say I’ve never seen the “de” convention used outside the classroom.
Danimal, no, when she was presented with the names she was given the full ones used in the novel (which aren’t the ones I’d used for example here). From what I understand, the y isn’t used quite as much nowadays, though it is preferred in instances where there’s the chance that a forename might be mistaken for a surname.
AFAIK, you’re right on the money Caerie – and the native speakers agree, which is always good. Ángela Martínez Gutiérrez and Juan Garcés Muñoz will have kids named José Garcés Martínez and Olga Garcés Martínez.
I have only seen the Y on one person, and her name was a tongue-twister. . . something like María de Jesús García y Rodríguez Campos.
Maria de Jesús was her given name.
García y Rodríguez was her father’s paternal surname.
Campos was her mother’s paternal surname.
I didn’t know her well enough to ask her how her father came by a combined paternal surname, unfortunately. I have seen quite a few Hispanic surnames in my life, but only one combined like that.
The “y” convention is a true relic from the past. I don’t think I have ever seen it without it being associated to high school history books.
The “de” convention is alive and well. At least in Venezuela. Maria Perez marries Juan Gonzalez and becomes Maria Perez de Gnnzalez, or Ms Gonzalez. Maria de Gonzalez in short form. Very rarely people would say Maria Gonzalez.
As for Puerto Ricans using the US conventions, as KarlGrenze said, that can only happen in the US. Official forms require that you use the local convention, and that prevents the tradition from drifting. There is a lot of influx of people returning from abroad using hyphenated lastnames and all that, but they only succeed in making their own lives complicated.
In Mexico, I’ve found the “de” to still be used in the northwest (say, Sonora), but not used at all in the central part of the country (say, Jalisco all the way through the Federal District).
So when Ernesto Rivera González marries Francisca Cortés Ruz, you end up with Francisca Cortés de González, or just Francisca Cortés González. But again in professional life, she’ll normally just be Francisca Cortés. (Any idea how this works legally? Is this convention, or a legal matter? My wife now has separate identities here [where she legally changed her name as per US custom] and in Mexico [where we didn’t do anything]).
These conventions lead to a lot of confusion in L.A., where over 40% of the population is Hispanic, and where databases in business life, which are usually governed by Anglo-phones, often “misidentify” people, and where people often inadvertently “misidentify” themselves. So many computer systems just have “first name,” “last name,” and that’s it. Few people will ask, “…appellido paterno, o apellido materno?” It would be funny if it didn’t cause so many headaches.
Not only that, but it totally defeats the typical “mother’s maiden name?” as a security question. Not much help if you use that name on a daily basis.
Karl-Grenze , nothing against hyphenation. I think it looks pretty cool, actually. My wife and I discussed the possibility of both changing our last names to a common hyphenated combo, and the option of naming our kids with it. In the end we decided against it because we didn’t plan to stay in the US for long.
Hmmmm. Are you saying it is not used in governmental documents or formal communication?
As far as I know, based on the print media and Televisa, it’s still used through out most of the country at least in mainstream general use. Informally, most women who are married will only say for example “Maria Rodriguez.” It’s only when it is formal (a contract for example) or governmental docs that they will say “Maria Luisa Rodriguez de Garza.”
Interesting. When and where was this? Born and raised in Mexico (and living in the US-Mexico all my life), we were never taught this in our schools or by our families.
Yeah, I kind of asked that myself. I never hear or see it used in that region of the country, and I mean specifically the use of “de” in the name. Not knowing the people on the news, I have no idea if they’re using a married name or some other name, though.
I think as far as informal conversation, generally speaking, in Mexico we don’t use the “de” when referring to a married woman. Usually just “Juanita Garcia.” But. For example, Televisa, which is televised from central Mexico to all of the country, when mentioning maybe the passing of a famous person will say something like “La viuda, la señora Juana Garcia de Echeverria, invita a la comunidad a …”
This was at Missouri Southern State College (now University) in Joplin. I took maybe five Spanish courses from 1987 to 1991; we covered the naming practices in the early courses, so 1987 or 1988. We had just two Spanish teachers back then, one Puerto Rican, the other an Anglo who had studied in Mexico, I think.
Besides in class, I recall encountering the convention in the 1990 Baseball Encyclopedia. All the listed players had their playing name in large print and then their full birth name in small print. As I recall, the small print birth names of the great majority of the Latino players had the “y” in them. By the way, rather few of the Latino players at that time came from Mexico; most were from the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico.
There’s also the famous Spanish philosopher-author Jose Ortega y Gasset, but I admit I don’t know even one other famous Hispanic whose name is regularly written with a “y.”
Part of my issue was that the family was repeatedly referred to as the “Gonzales” family, but the father’s surname actually appeared to be “Rivera.”
, nothing against hyphenation. I think it looks pretty cool, actually. My wife and I discussed the possibility of both changing our last names to a common hyphenated combo, and the option of naming our kids with it. In the end we decided against it because we didn’t plan to stay in the US for long.