By gpaez |

Gilbert Paez here. First of all, thank you for letting me part this group. I am working my way through the various areas of the website. It is Great!
My question: Could someone help me with the rules for the proper use of hispanic surnames? Example: My grandmother's maiden name was Romero and my grandfather's last name was Paez. Would my father be Paez Romero?

Cuales son las reglas para el uso de los appellidos en la cultura hispana? Ejemplo: El apellido de mi abuelo era Romero antes de casarse. El apellido de mi abuelo era Paez. El apellido de mi padre fuera Paez Romero o Romero Paez?

Gracias,

Thanks in advance for your help.

Gilbert:

As you get further back in time this convention disappears completely and is replaced by something that few if any people can explain. Back in the early 1700s and earlier, children were given surnames that were sometimes the paternal name, sometimes the maternal name, sometimes a combination thereof and sometimes neither parent's name but rather that of a grandparent or even an uncle or padrino.

One pattern I have noticed is that surnames tended to be passed on based on land inheritance and prestige so that if land was inherited from the mother's side it was more likely the sons would take the mother's name, especially since there were probably no male offspring to propogate the name if she had inherited the land. Another phenomenon was that if a child was named after a grandparent, they usually got the whole name, including surname so a daughter named for her grandmother Maria de Saucedo would also be named Maria de Saucedo even if her father's surname was Miramontes and her mother's surname was Haro.

Sometimes a name gets combined (maternal and paternal, i.e. Miramontes y Haro or locative and patrinomic, i.e. Lopez de Talamantes) and passed on it the composed form for multiple generations before someone finally decided to chop off one or the other...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberian_naming_customs

http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/juliana/isabella/surnames.html

http://blogs.ancestry.com/circle/?p=430&o_iid=24018&o_lid=24018

wixaritori (not verified)

18 years 9 months ago

Permalink

Hola Gilbert,

En México el primer apellido es siempre el del padre y el segundo es el de
la madre. La excepción a esta regla es cuando una mujer se casa y adquiere
el apellido de su marido como segundo apellido ligado por la preposición
"de". Por ejemplo, en el caso de tu abuela materna, después de casarse ella
se convertiría en Romero de Paez.

In Mexico the paternal surname always comes first, followed by the maternal
surname. The exception to the rule is when a women marries and get's her
husband's surname joined by the "de" preposition. For example, your
maternal grandmother, after marrying, would have been Romero de Paez. And
you're right about your father's surnames: Paez Romero.

Saludos,

Victor

Genealogy Research