Spanish Learning Centre Blackpool

Have you ever been to Spain and had the surrealist experience of dealing with paperwork?

Have you had the problem of having to write one first name (when you may have two) and two surnames (when you may have only one)?

This is especially interesting for translators when they need to translate personal information forms from English to Spanish or from Spanish to English, because the English form will contain the words "First names" (in the plural) and "Surname" (in the singular) whereas the Spanish form will contain "Nombre" (in the singular) and "Apellidos" (in the plural).

Right, here is why.

Spanish people have a first name and two surnames. Their first surname is their father's first surname and the second is their mother's first surname. The father's surname is considered to be the most important except when this is very usual and then the mother's is preferred (e.g. Federico García Lorca is better known as Lorca).

Under the current Spanish legislation it is possible to use the mother's surname as the first one followed by the father's surname, although this is not the tradition.

Spanish first names might be compound or not. Female names are traditionally compounds including the name "María" (María José, María Luisa, María del Carmen, María Dolores, etc). Male names can also be compound like Jose María, (not to be confused with María José which is a female name), José Antonio, Juan Carlos, etc.

And talking about female and male names it is important to notice that Spanish women do not lose their surnames when they get married as happens with British women who adopt their husbands' surnames. So, a woman called, for example, Carmen Martínez López, will retain those two surnames all her life, regardless of how many times she marries. So there you go... Esposa does not change name but does become your hand cuff! (The word "esposa" has two meanings in Spanish: wife and hand cuff)

It is very common to use abbreviations in Spanish names. The following are just some examples: Ascensión (Chon, Choni), José (Pepe, which comes from "Padre Putativo" (P.P.) something like supply father, since it refers to Saint Joseph), Francisco (Paco), Concepción (Conchi, Concha), Inmaculada (Inma), Manuel (Manolo, Nolo, Lolo), Isabel (Isa), Asunción (Asun), Antonio (Toni), Pilar (Pili) or Dolores (Lola).

In more modern times some Spanish parents have taken the (intelligent?) decision of giving their offspring foreign names but with a Spanish spelling! Like, for example: Elizabet, Jonatan, Yesica, Jenifer; or even names of famous people, including surnames!: Kevin Cosner, Elvis Presley or Jotaerre (JR from the popular TV series "Dallas").

Another common phenomenon is that many Spanish surnames use the ending -EZ which is added to first names. That way, from one common root, we find both first names and surnames. For example: Jiménez from Jimeno, Martínez from Martín, López from Lope (as in Lope de Vega), González from Gonzalo, Sánchez from Sancho (as in Sancho Panza), Ramirez from Ramiro, etc.

This might be a similarity with the particle Mac in Scottish names and O' in Irish ones.

Finally, let's not forget an interesting (but also sad) Spanish surname which is "Expósito". The origin of this name goes back to many years ago when in times of poverty, some parents abandoned their children in the street because they could not look after them. "Expósito" means "exposed" in the street for those who wanted to claim them.

María José García is managing director of http://www.spanishtranslationservice.net/ and is passionate about all matters relating to Spain including the Spanish language and culture and of course the process of translating from Spanish to English or from English to Spanish.