The names we give the baby usually receive great attention during pregnancy. However, we rarely notice that the surnames are also part of their appellation, inform about their affiliation and are not written with fire in almost no identity card.
We continue with our review by the situation of surnames in the world, the differences between countries and traditions and some curiosities about what our children and ourselves are called.
Male and female surnames
In Central and Eastern Europe, the Slavic and Baltic languages stipulate that surnames have grammatical gender (male and female), and therefore change depending on whether they are owned by a man or a woman.
In Russia, in Poland and in Bulgaria, a person's full name consists of the first name, patronymic (an appellation originated from a proper name) and surname. Most Russian surnames have patronymic origins: the suffix -ov (a) or -ev (a) is usually added to the father's first name, where "a" is used for the female gender. The current patronymics, however, have the suffix -ovich or -evich for the male gender and the suffix -ovna or -evna for the female.
In the Czech Republic A woman's full name consists of the first name and last name with the ending in feminine. Most of the Czech surnames have patronymic origins, and the ending -ovo for the masculine, and -ova or -cká for the feminine is added to the father's name. That -ova and or -cká are declines, which mean "of" (De Nóvak, De Jensen, De Martínez ...). It would be like "the woman / daughter of Nóvak". This rule also applies to foreign women, including high-level visitors and movie stars. The Czech press refers to German Chancellor Angela Merkel as Angela Merkelova and the first American lady as Michelle Obamova instead of Obama.
In Latvia, the law requires the transfer of foreign surnames to the traditional forms of their language, which causes not a lot of confusion in a country where marriage certificates are still being requested, and passports that keep the original last name are also introduced. .
In Lithuania, a woman's last name not only has to be grammatically correct, but must also indicate her marital status. If she is married, she will take the last name of the husband with the equivalent of "de". But their daughters will wear the bachelorhood as long as they don't get married and take their husbands' last name.
Other curiosities about surnames in the world
Some surnames composed in Spanish such as San Basilio, San Juan, San Martín, Santamaría ... and in general those that begin with San, Santa, Santo or Santos were born in times of the Spanish Holy Inquisition, when Sephardic, Moorish, gypsy and other ethnicities they had to flee and change their last names using these compounds.
In Spain, only the current name system plus paternal and maternal surname in 1870 was enacted and made mandatory in 1870 with the introduction of the civil registry, although it had been more than a century already using this system. As we mentioned in the first part of this series, since 1999 the order of surnames can already be exchanged.
The last name of a woman changes traditionally after getting married in some cultures, although there are few countries that make such a change.
In Iceland, the surname consists simply of the patronymic with the suffix -son (son) or -dóttir (daughter). For example, the sons of Guðmund Jónsson would be Stefán Guðmundsson (son) and Vígdis Guðmundsdóttir (daughter), while those of Stefán would be Þór Stefánsson (son) and Guðrún Stefánsdóttir (daughter). These suffixes are similar to the Castilians -ez, -is (Fernández, son of Fernando, Sanchis, son of Sancho ...), who have been fossilized.
In English it is a common practice to write the last name (unique) before the name in documents, envelopes and email addresses, while in French the opposite is true.
Not all the peoples of Africa they used surnames as understood in the West: traditionally there were many changing, adoptive and crossed surnames between several bloodlines or not.
And is that the system used in African countries is very different from the European and varies from one country to another. In some country, the day of the week in which it is born is part of the name, as in Ivory Coast.
In Asian countries it is common to put the last name in front of the name. In some country, such as Eritrea, the name and names of the parents are used, without surnames.
As we see, the tradition of surnames in the world is very rich and with numerous differences throughout geography and throughout history. Surely once these multiple curiosities are known we will look more at what people are called, looking for an explanation of their last names.
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