A study of recent naming trends among Latin American males, as viewed through the filter of Major League Baseball.
As a long-time baseball fan (and as a human being) one sees a lot of Hispanic names. Mostly, the names are familiar, and mostly have analogues to Anglo names. For example, the current roster of the SF Giants includes a Pablo, Marco, Joaquin, Andres, Gregor, Hector, Sergio and Santiago. And the league is populated liberally with Marianos and Albertos and Franciscos.
But lately, unique names are popping up. Yusmeiro (Petit, Giants), Yasiel (Puig, Dodgers) and Yoenis (Cespedes, A’s) come to mind.
Is there a trend recently in Latin American countries (similar to what we’ve seen in the US) away from classic names and on to unique names (and starting with “Y”)?
There is a Cuban player in the majors name Yunel Escobar. Oddly enough, the Y seems to be pronounced as a J. Our announcers seem to alternate between a Y sound and a J sound, but once we tuned to a Miami announcer and he invariably pronounced it as a J (not the H sound that J is usually pronounced in Spanish, but an English sounding J).
Russian names are likely to be more popular in Cuba or Venezuela, I’d think, but they do seem less common yeah. It’s become unfashionable to name your kid Vladimir Ilyich for some reason.
Hari Seldon: I don’t speak Spanish or IPA very well, but perhaps something like the best English approximation of some sound that doesn’t exist in English. E.g. (as a WAG, not answer) the ɰ sound?
You want to see weird? Check out Brazilian MMA fighters’ names. A quick scan of Wikipedia gives me: Geronimo, Junior, Glover, Lyoto, Anderson, Wanderlei, and Gleison. Not to mention Rickson, Royce, Royler, and Renzo (all one family though). A mix of weird and the English-last-names-as-first-names popular with middle class white Americans as of late.
Y/J is, I think, a common transposition among Spanish speakers. There was a gag on Modern Family where Sofia Vergara’s character wants to check restaurant reviews, so she picks up her smart phone and says “I check the Jelp”.
In much of the American and Southern Peninsular accents/dialects there has been a loss of differentiation altogether (Yeísmo) – and in the examples given Yunel’s and Sophia’s usage is actually closer to the “old” standard, where the consonant-*Y *is supposed to be voiced palatal fricative and thus sounds closer to the English J, while the LL is supposed to be palatal lateral approximant, sounding closer to the English Y.
I was unsure about that one, but at least it has precedence, e.g. someone his parents admired. Still, if it is Spanish, then it still doesn’t really fit in Brazil! There is also an MMA guy named John. Not João.
In parts of Mexico, the steady shift from Catholocism to various Protestant churches (Evangelical, mainly, I think) has resulted in a shift away from familiar New Testament names like Pablo, Juan, and Maria, to more obscure Old Testament names like Neftali, Gael, and Sarai.
No cite, but I’ve noticed an increasing trend among Caribbean Spanish speakers for invented names. And just like there are popular sounds and sound combinations in African-American invented names (sh, wa, ja, la) and Caucasian-American invented names (-den, -en, -ly, -son), there also seem to be popular sounds in Spanish invented names (Ye, -er, r/l combination).
Cuba overflows with made-up names. One story I’ve heard is that the spectacle of big-ass American ships passing by the coast used to impress the rural population so much that the Cuban countryside is full of li’l kids named “Usmail”, or “Usnavy.”
Yasmin and Yesenia are very common names among Hispanic girls I teach.
The other trend I’ve noticed is that the white, middle-class girl names of my childhood (born in the 70s) are now popular names for Hispanic girls in high school (so born in the 90s). These day, I see a Jennifer or a Nataly or a Jessica or a Christina and I assume it’s a Hispanic kid.
But nothing compares to the popularity of Alex-y names for boys and girls right now. We have 110 ish Freshmen this year at my school. About 65% of the are Hispanic, so say 70. Of those 70, 11 are named some version of Alex, be it Alejandro, Alejandra, Alexis, or Alexander. Last year, in a different school, I had an Alexa, an Alexia, and an Alexis all in one class. I’ve had three stuents named Alejandro Hernandez in the last three years.
Some of those names, or the endings, sound that they might be Biblical names, but not the most common ones. Some obscure odd-soundng Biblical names.
Related to the above, some areas of the Caribbean have had enough Middle Eastern minority that names which sound weird to US are “uncommon common names”. For example: Omar, Yamil, Ismael, Yariel… I know people (and shops!) with those names, didn’t realize until I was an undergrad that those names are considered strange or weird in the US.
In some areas, there are cycles of using indigenous (Pre-Colombian) names, either original words or similar sounding forms. And according to the region, that may change the type of name. They would all be weird to US/English speakers, and even weirdbetween one region and another. I know several with such names (men and women). Yaraní, Yara, Yarí, Coaí, Urayoán, Yaureibo, etc.
Yes, they do like invented names. Any problems with that?
Good point. Mexican leftist intellectuals (especially those with a bit of a nationalist streak – which to me can be anti-progressive, but never mind) in recent years tend to name their children things like Nezahualcoyotl (an Aztec leader from a few years before Moctezuma) or Sochitl (one way to spell the Nahuatl word for “flower”.)
FTR I checked and I get Jerônimo as the Portuguese version of Jerome, so it ends up looking like the Spanish Jerónimo when either one loses its diacritic in an English-language setting.
Right, but I think what was meant was that Geronimo, the famous Apache leader, was given (or took on) that name which is directly derived from (really, a spelling variant of) the Spanish name which is generally rendered in English as “Jerome.”