Sources of given names
If we look at first names according to their
historical origin, we find that most traditional first names in both Spanish and
English come from one of the following four sources:
- Germanic names: this source is to be expected in English, which is a Germanic language, such as Alfred (cf. Sp. Alfredo), but we find many Germanic names in Spanish as well, in part because of its Visigothic past (200 years of ruling the peninsula between the 6th and 8th centuries), such as Álvaro or Rodrigo; actually, many of the Germanic names in Spanish and English are borrowed from Frankish, another Germanic language, such as Eng. Robert ~ Sp. Roberto.
- Hebrew names: these come from Biblical names and thus there are many cognates here too, e.g. Eng. & Sp. Daniel, Eng. John ~ Sp. Juan, Eng. Mary & Sp. María, or Eng. Esther ~ Sp. Ester. Names taken from the Bible have been extremely common in Christian Europe since Christianity began to spread there close to 2,000 years ago.[i]
- Roman (Latin) names: such as Sp. Julio ~ Eng. Jules or their feminine versions Sp. Julia ~ Eng. Julia; these names came to be used initially because they were names of early saints and martyrs of the Christian Church, which was, of course, the Church based in Rome (Christianity arose in the Roman Empire and from the beginning, Latin was the language of Western Christianity, which was based in Rome)
- Greek names: such as Sp. Jorge ~ Eng. George, also typically from the names of early martyrs and saints from the eastern part of the Roman Empire
From the names of male saints, female names were
derived sometimes, such as Sp. Francisca
and Eng. Frances, which are feminine
versions of the original male names Sp. Francisco
and Eng. Francis.[1]
Additionally, as already mentioned, women’s names have often been connected to the
Virgin Mary in Spanish. A woman’s name could also stem from the location where the
Virgin Mary was reported to have appeared, such as the Virgen de Lourdes and the Virgen de Guadalupe, which gave us the female names
Lourdes and Guadalupe (see §46.2.5
below).
There are some names connected to Christianity that are not names
of saints per se or names from the Bible, such as Sp. Salvador, meaning ‘savior’, which refers to Jesus Christ, or Angel, which in Christianity refers to a
‘a spiritual being believed to act as an attendant or messenger of God, conventionally
represented as being of human form with wings’ (COED). Curiously, in English, Angel is a woman’s name (/ˈeɪ̯n.ʤəl/) whereas
in Spanish, Ángel is a man’s name (/ˈan.xel/).
The feminine form of Sp. Ángel is Ángela, though ángela is not a word for a female angel, since there is no such thing.
It is just a feminine form of the word Angel,
which has been around for a long time in the Western world, though English did
not borrow it until the 18th century.
Primarily because
naming conventions are tied to religion and also in part because of the shared European
source of the English and Spanish languages, it is not surprising that there are
many cognate first names in these two languages. Remember that England was
Catholic until the 1530’s, when the English king Henry VIII renounced papal
authority over the Church of England, which had been established in the 6th
century. Thus, speakers of English and Spanish shared Catholic-based names and
naming conventions for a long time. We will see a list of very common cognate names
in a later section of this chapter.
We should
mention that in the Spanish-speaking world, there are different naming traditions
in different countries, although there are also many similarities. In Spain, during
the Franco dictatorship that ended in the 1970’s, Catholic naming conventions were
imposed on the population and names had to come from the approved list of
saint’s names (Sp. santoral) and they
could only be in Spanish and not in any of the other national languages, namely
Basque, Catalan, or Galician (cf. Part I, Chapter 9). Although there is much more freedom
nowadays to assign a name of one’s choosing to a child, traditional names are still
used by many parents in Spain and in many other Spanish-speaking countries,
though not all, the most glaring exception being the Dominican Republic.
Although the
naming system in Spain is much more lax now than it used to be, in this country,
unlike in the United States, names can still be refused by the authorities, the
Registro Civil, the ‘registry office’.
In 2016, there was a big controversy in Spain because the authorities had
refused to accept the choice of Lobo
‘Wolf’ for a boy’s name by his parents. Although this is a well-known last name
in Spanish, somebody at the Civil Registry did not think it was appropriate as
a first name. Eventually, after a petition was signed by hundreds of
thousands of people, the authorities relented and allowed the boy to have the
name Lobo.
In the Spanish
Basque Country, Basque names were not allowed during the Franco dictatorship,
from 1938 on. Basque names can now be used, even names from mythological
figures, such as Aitor, or after
names of natural formations such as rivers or mountain ranges, such as the
unisex name Alaitz. Some of the
popular Basque names are equivalent to traditional Christian names, such as Paul (pronounced [pa.ˈul]), which is
equivalent to Eng. Paul (pronounced [ˈpɔl])
and Sp. Pablo (the source of all this
names was Latin Paulus, accusative Paulum). Some common modern Basque names
were created in the early 20th century as part of the Basque nationalist
revival, such as Koldo, which is
equivalent to Sp. Luis and Eng. Lewis or Louis, and Kepa, which is
equivalent to Sp. Pedro and Eng. Peter, and Nekane, which is equivalent to Sp. Dolores (see below).[2]
In some Hispanophone
countries in the Americas, there has been a much longer period of freedom to choose
other types of names for one’s children, other than those sanctioned by the
Church, even though traditional names are still quite common, if not the majority.
In these countries, traditional English names are sometimes used in recent
times due to US cultural influence, such as Michael,
Maxwell, Erika, or Karen, as well as
other unusual names. Unusual names are very common in the Dominican Republic, for
example, where one encounters names from unusual languages, especially for girls,
such as Arabic Zuleika and Yesenia, or exotic creations such as Yafreisi, Amiris, or Karttieris.[3]
Regarding
English first names, we should mention that until the Norman invasion in 1066,
first names in England followed the Germanic tradition. Thus we find names such
as Æðelstan, formed with the Old
English morphemes æðel ‘noble’ and stan ‘stone’, or like Godgifu, an early form of the name Godiva, which meant ‘gift of god’, from
the elements god ‘god’ and giefu ‘gift’.[ii]
After the Norman invasion, however, Anglo-Saxon names lost their prestige, much
like the English language did (cf. Part I, Chapter 12), and they were replaced by Norman
and Christian names over the span of a century.
Some of the
most popular male English names after the Norman Conquest were Norman names such
as William (Sp. Guillermo), which was the most popular post-invasion male name, Richard (Sp. Ricardo), Henry (Sp. Enrique), Robert (Sp. Roberto), Roger (Sp. Rogelio), and Hugh (Sp. Hugo). Popular Norman names for women
included Matilda (Sp. Matilde), Alice (Sp. Alicia), and Emma (Sp. Ema). Christian names, either Biblical names or names of saints,
became popular as well, names such as Thomas
(Sp. Tomás), John (Sp. Juan), Steven (Sp. Esteban), Nicholas (Sp. Nicolás), Catherine (Sp. Catalina),
Agnes (Sp. Inés), Jane/Jean (Sp. Juana), and Mary (Sp. María). Very few Anglo-Saxon names
survived this ‘conversion’. Among the male names that have survived are Alfred (Sp. Alfredo), Edgar (Sp. Edgardo), Edwin, and Edward (Sp. Eduardo); and, for women, Edith and Ethel (Sp. Adela). It is in
great part because of this switch in the source of first names from the Old
English (Anglo-Saxon) period to the Middle English period that we find so many
cognate first names between English and Spanish.
[1] In
English, Francisco is equivalent to Francis or Frank and Francisca to Frances, cf. §46.5.4
below.
[2] It would
seem that some of these names were made to look as un-Spanish-like as possible by Basque nationalist authors
Sabino Arana and Koldo Elizalde. Bq. Koldo
is a shortening of Koldobika, which
is an adaptation of Lat. Clodovicus,
which was an adaptation of the Old Frankish given name Chlodowig, which is the ultimate source of Sp. Luis and Eng. Lewis and Louis. Bq. Kepa was taken from the original Aramaic language word for ‘rock’, Kephas or Cephas. That is because the names Peter and Pedro come from
Lat. petrus ‘rock’ (source of Sp. piedra ‘stone’), the nickname that
Christ supposedly gave to one of his apostles, Simon, who would become Saint
Peter in the Christian tradition.
[3] The D.R.
is not the only place where rare names are popular. It has been reported that
there is a town in the region of Castile in Spain, Huerta de Rey (Burgos
province) that in recent decades claims to have the largest percentage of
uncommon names, such as the women’s names Orencia, Sinclética, Tenebrina, and
Basilides, or the men’s names Rudesindo, Onesiforo, Floripes, and Ursicinio. In
total there are 300 different names for the town’s 900 inhabitants. The
difference is that these are all not made-up names, but lost names from ancient
traditions, such as Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Visigothic, and Celtic traditions.
