What about you?

[Paula Mendoza]

1. What are common names where you come from?
Common names from my country are Maria, Juan, Jose or Rafael.

2. Is your family name common?
It is not, at least in my country, maybe it's more common in South-America.

3. Does your family name tell you anything about your family (e.g., where you come from)?
No it doesn't.

4. Some English names refer to trades or professions, such as Butcher or Baker. Does your name mean anything?
My family name doeasn't mean anything about trades or professions.

5. Are there any names in your country that do?
Are any names from other countries popular in your country? Which ones?
In Spain, there are some family names that do, such as Abad, Pescador, Labrador or Pastor.

6. In your country when you meet someone for the first time, what name do you use? How do you know when you can use their first name?
In Spain, we always use the first name to present ourselves. Sometimes, people has shorter names that use when you have more confidence such as Eli for Elisabeth or Mire for Mireia.

7. In your country do you ever use surnames without a title (e.g., Mrs or Mr)? When could you do this? Why would you do it?
We use to use a title for surnames just for old people as a signal of respect, usually just for ancient people or in very formal situations.

8. There are common pet names in English that show affection, such as honey, darling or pet. What words are used in your language?
We use "cariño", "bebé" or "vida".

[Maryliz]

In my country it's quiet common for parents to give their children two first names. Ofeten the first name of these has some kind of family significance. For example my firts names are Maria Elizabeth and I have two sisters one of them is Maria Olimpia and the other one is Maria Valeria. I think that my parents just choose Maria for all of us because my grandmother was Maria too.

Actualy no one of us use Maria's name, most of the time we use just Elizabeth, Olimpia and Valeria.

Now I have two sons and my housband and I called them Daniel Alejandro and Emilio Alejandro because my housband's name is Alejandro.

[Admin]

Interesting tradition Maryliz, where are you from?
See you,
Pieter

[Alex]

Hi Paula!
I think that my country and yours have the same common names such as Maria, José. Pedro or Jesús. While my family name is not common, sometimes people don't pronounce it properly. It's Meriño. My family name doesn't mean anything like yours. I think so.

On the other hand, In Colombia, we use the first name to present ourselves, and if we greet someone it's very polite to call them Mr or Mrs with their lastname.

[mpadros@cpnl.cat]

Hi, Paula,

In effect your family name doesn't mean anything about professions but it has a meaning, too. In Basc language it means "cold mountain" and now it's a Spanish surname which people doesn't know the meaning.
My surname is Padrós: Pedró (in Catalan) is a pile made of stones in a path to divide two towns. I'm a Catalan teacher and as I have students from around the world I'm always interested in surname's meanings.