What that means is that the mother, father and children in one family will all, generally, have different surnames. In Spanish culture, women do not change their name when married. This point about the paternal surname coming first and the maternal surname coming second is an important one to remember, as we’ll discuss below in the paragraph about how to address someone by their surname. Going back to our friend José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, using the information above we now understand that Rodriguez is his paternal surname and Zapatero is his maternal surname. The first is the paternal surname ( apellido paterno), the father’s first surname, and the second is the maternal surname ( apellido materno), the mother’s first surname.Īs you may have realised, this means that what we would call the mother’s maiden name, is passed down a further generation than in traditional Anglophone cultures. In Spanish cultures, people traditionally have 2 surnames. Note that, as mentioned above, Luis is not the Prime Minister’s middle name but part of a full, single, given name – José Luis. For instance Juan or, like the Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis. In Spanish cultures, people either have one or two given names. Keep in mind though, that where I use the word Spain or Spanish, I’m really speaking about Spanish culture extending all around the world, not just culture from the country of Spain. Throughout this post I’ll use the current Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and his family, as an example to explain Spanish culture naming conventions. Once you forget about the Middle Name, understanding the full name becomes significantly easier. By longer I don’t mean they have more letters, I mean they have more words.īefore we get into why this is the case it’s important to understand that the concept of a “Middle Name” doesn’t exist in Spanish naming conventions. Many of you will notice that Spanish names tend to be longer than in many other cultures.
We’ll progress beyond that in the next few parts of this series but, as with all things, let’s begin at the beginning… Today we start with Part 1 of our Spanish Naming Conventions series – The Basics
With the influence that Spanish culture has had around the world, you may very well have Spanish roots somewhere in your family tree.įor those unfamiliar with Spanish naming conventions, finding and exploring ancestors may be a little confusing.
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