Calling People Names

[Pilar]

Hello, my name is Maria del Pilar and as you can guess it's a very common name in my conuntry, Spain. There are other common names but I think Maria del Pilar is the first Spanish woman name. I was named after my mother. The short form is Pilar and only my friends call me Pili.

My surname is López and it's also very common. There is a famous actress whith the same name: Pilar López. The title used with the surname in Spain is Sra. or Srta., it depends if you are married or not. Sometimes it depends of the age of the person. It's a very polited form.

Some of the common pet names here, in my country, are: cariño, cielo, amor...

[Imma Torres]

Hello,
My name is Imma Torres.
If you want to know what’s the position of your spanish family name you can visit this web: http://apellido.enfemenino.com/w/apellidos/espana.html
In my case, Torres, I share family name with almost 113.518 people!! And in a list of it I will stay in the 25th position.
Strange and interesting, true?

[Alicia]

Hello!!!

my name is Alicia, and I like it cause this is not a very common name. In my country María, Ana, Marta are very common names. My mother's name is Marta!!!

I don't like use names fron another countries like Christian or Jennifer...sounds bad for me. I like so much euskera's names like Ainoa, Nerea, Iker...

My surname is Moreno. I don't think is very common, but I know several persons with the same surname like me.

[xiana]

Hi Imma,

I am Xiana and I just begin the course a few days ago.

Thanks for share with us that interesting website... My surname "Bueno" is the number 253, but my second surname "García" is the number ONE!!! jejeje...

I will send the link to my family!

Have a nice english learning!

Xiana

[Xiana]

Hello all,

My name is Xiana. It is a little bit stranger name, actually even in the region on this name came from, Galicia, is neither very common. I am Galician and my name too. Supposedly, Xiana means Juliana in Spanish, as Xian means Julián. My parents named after my grandmother’s death a few months before I born. She was called Julia, but my parents didn’t like to repeat names in the family, so they looked for the translation in Galician, but they didn’t research very well. Anyway, I liked my name, then it was a nice misunderstanding.

My surname is Bueno, like “Good”, and many people joke with me asking “And are you good?” (this was more frequently when I was a child). I don’t think is very common in Spain. But there are some famous people named Bueno, like Gustavo Bueno, the philosopher, or Pepa Bueno, a TV hostess. I would like to think that my family name tells something about me.

Regarding to whether there are foreign names popular in Spain, I don’t think so. But what is true is that some years ago was in fashion that people named their children like TV characters, for instance from TV series or soap opera, like Cristal or two names as Carlos Alfredo or Fernando José.

When I met someone, I don’t spend more time to call him/her by his/her fist name, even if they are older than me. I am aware of sometimes I could seem impolite, but most of them I guess people like you remember and call them by their names. I don’t use to say the title before the name, only in a very very formal context.

I am really not sure why but when I use pet names, I usually use them in Galician or Catalan, although my mother tongue language is Spanish. I guess they sounds me better than in Spanish or maybe is something that I can not control, it is an habit. Examples of pet names in Galician are chuliño, rula, neniña, raparigo… and in Catalan maybe carinyet, amoret, xiqueta, …

Thanks for reading me!

[Guest]

[quote="Imma Torres"]Hello,
My name is Imma Torres.
If you want to know what’s the position of your spanish family name you can visit this web: http://apellido.enfemenino.com/w/apellidos/espana.html
In my case, Torres, I share family name with almost 113.518 people!! And in a list of it I will stay in the 25th position.
Strange and interesting, true?[/quote]

Hello Imma!
Thanks for your interesting web. My surname "Lopez" is in the second position only in Spain... I'm shure in America there are a lot of "Lopez".

See you! :-)

[Guest]

[quote="Xiana"]Hello all,

My name is Xiana. It is a little bit stranger name, actually even in the region on this name came from, Galicia, is neither very common. I am Galician and my name too. Supposedly, Xiana means Juliana in Spanish, as Xian means Julián...[/quote]

Xiana it's a strange but beautifull name... I like it.