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My name is Manu. This is the short for Manuel. This is a very common name in my contry, Spain. Although this is not so frequent where I live, Catalonia.
I have been looking for another Manu or Manuel on the Noticeboard, but it has been impossible to find one.
By the way, I have find a lot of information about other names and surnames. Not only from my country, but also in the rest of Europe. I have read some things about a greek student. He says that there, in Greece, they use some words from English a pet names.
This is not so usual in Catalonia or Spain. We use English words in lots of situations but never, at least not me, as pet names.
I have also read a very interesting post written by another spanish student talking about patronymics (names that have its root in the name of the father). In Catalonia we have a large number of surnames of this kind.

Hi malonso,

Thanks for posting about your names. I read your other post, too - both are very interesting.

Well let’s talk of family names...(2nd part)

We have two surnames in Spain, now..but not too long ago, until the beginning of the last century, it was very usual that people use four family names. The fist one of the father, the first one of the mother, the second one of the father and the second one of the mother. What a mess!! ...furthermore if you take count that frequently you can find composed family names..by means...you can stand for all your life things like this as family names “Lope-Llanos Garcia de la Barreda Martín-Osorio de Carbajal Ruiz-Lopera”…all for one person… ...this is, surely, one of the main reasons why we have so frequents nick names as Pepe, Paco or Lola. But, from this ancient situations we are , according the globalizations winds, moving to the opposite extreme and in many registers you can find only a field for your fist family name ( in Spain the father’s one, in Portugal, more realistic, the mother’s one)..It make me feel confuse. Must I forgot my mother family name or to put it together in the same field of the first one?.... perhaps my feeling is the same that my grand grand parents had when they find that in some places they don’t take care of their third or their fourth family names…

Hi juliocesarp,

Thanks for sharing this information. It's very interesting to see how this is different in other countries. Four surnames sounds really complicated! I can imagine filling in forms or spelling names on the phone would be tiresome!

Hello,
My name is Lucía,
This is a common name in my country, in fact, there is a region called Andalucía. But when I was young I didn´t meet many girls named Lucía, so I was sure this was an unusual name.
My family name , Pérez, is also very common in my country, although it doesn´t tell me much about the origins of my family, exept that who is called Perez could desdend from Pedro, I mean, they are Pedro´s sons, like persons who are called Fernandez, Rodríguez or other similar common names are supoused be Fernando´s or Rodrigo´s descendents. In my country there are surnames which refers to trades or profesions too, the clearest example is our President´s surname, Zapatero, which means person who repairs shoes. Even, actually there are some foreign names which are sounded a lot due to inmigration.
When I meet someone for the first time, I use my first name and my surname, so "Lucía Pérez", is not much frecuent to use surnames with a title, reserving this form for very formal recepcions. Only when I begin trusting in this person I use my first name or even my nick name.
And finally, we have also affective pet names in spanish, like "cariño", "cielo", but there are reserved for the domestic field.

Hi Lucía,

Thanks for posting about your name. It's interesting to read.

My name is Lucy, which is the same as Lucía, I think.

My name is Ainara Martínez and I live in Basque Country. In my country the names that the people use to name their children are basque names.
In my case, of course my name is basque. My mom say that the meaning of my name is "swallow". Other people say that this name hasn't any translation in spanish...
In my family the story of my name I't so peculiar... I'll try to explain it ...

After my mom gave birth me, she was very very ill and the doctor decide to take her to UVI (I don't know how does it say in english)....My father was very worried about my mother obviously
Well....when my mother woke up, she did'nt speak very well so... she tried to tell my father tha she was right... the precises words were "estoy bien... no pasa nada"
My father in state of nervous tension understood "ainara..." and my father Thank "my wife is trying to tell me that she wants to name ainara to our daugther"
My father ran to the nurse and told her "Finally we have a name for our daughter .. ainara"
When my mum woke up... and asked to my father "Where are our daughter, maider (other basque name)?" may father said: "Maider???? our daughter are called ainara... you have been saying ainara all the time that were ill..."
My mum look my father in the eye and said "ok... ainara will be the name of our baby"

I hope you at least that this story had been mistress for us..

Best wishes for all...

Did you know that Garcia is the most popular family name in Spain? The are 1349883 people who have this family name.