Forums

There are a lot of common names in my country, like Maria, Juan, José... In my city, Ávila, Teresa is the most common name for women due to a famous saint.
My name is Marta and is a common name in Spain.
My family name, Velázquez, doesn't tell anything about my family, but has a meaning. All family names that end in "ez" meaning "son of..". So, Velázquez means son of Velasco.
There are some people named with a foreing name, as Jessica, Jennifer or Kevin.
When I meet someone for the first time I used my complete name if I'm at work; if not I only use my fist name.

1.the common names are the names that people more use to named the people
2.No, I know few people that has a family name like mine
3.Yes, my family name comes from Girona and before this, some centenary ago, from Germany
4.In fact I don't know the meaning of my family name, but maybe becomes from Genove and the meaning is like someone who comes from there. In my country there are a lot family names that have a profession meaning for example.
5.For example from Scotland, like Maccferson or something like this.
6.If is not a business negotiation or something protocol uses, I think you can use always the first name.
7.I think that in my country is not typical to use a title, maybe when you are talking to someone that you don't know or is the first time that you talk to him or her.
8.I think that there are some horrible words like Cariño, amor, querido/a, etc...

1. The most commons names in my country used to be Maria, José, Fátima and Manuel. Nowadays, the most common names are Ana, João, Pedro and Tiago.
2. My family name is pretty common in some regions of my country, but it is not where I live.
3. My family name, Couto, doesn't mean anything. But I searched it and I found out that my family was connected with the part of society that lived for religion - "clero".
4. No, I don't think so. At least, I can't remember any.
5. Not really. Is not very common in Portugal.
6. I normally use my first name to introduce myself. We only treat people with their first name when they say so or if we know that person for a long time.
7. We use surnames without titles. We only use titles when we are doing business or we are talking about someone really important.
8. In portuguese, we use "querido/a", "amor", "lindo/a", etc.

My name, Ana María, is one of the commons names in my country. When I was born, parents normaly added the name María as a second name to the girls.
I like my family name, Cánovas, because is strong and only common in some regions of the country but not in Madrid. I think it doesn't mean anything but it is normal that all family names have an arm shield and I found mine in Valencia when I went on holidays a years ago.
Now is normal to find names from Africa or America.
With friends, colleges or someone you know, we use the first name but also in these cases, in Spain, is very common to use an nickname or short name.
We also use pet names with someone we love or with our family like cariño o cari, amor, querido.
With friends we use pet names more nice like tronco, colegui, chiquitín...

Where I come from, there are many typical names, most of them are very common in the rest of Spain. For instance Juan, María, José, Manuel, …The name María is combined with many other names building composed names like Ana María, María del Carmen, María Dolores, … From I point of view the possible combinations are almost infinitive.

My family surname is one of the most common surnames in Spain, in some surveys is ranked 10th in the whole list, been the 6th in the area where my family come from (Granada). My second surname, which is Alcalá, is easy to find in the province of Jaen. More than the five percent of the population have that surname. Most of the occurrences are in the surroundings of Alcalá la Real village.

My father always says that our surname Martín comes from France and it came to Spain in the 17th century when French troops moved to the Alpujarras’ military Headquarters.

Like in other countries in Spain there are many surnames whose meaning is a profession, some examples are Carretero, Ballestero, Alcalde, Soldado, …

The influence of other countries is obvious, over all of our neighbours Portugal and France. Some examples are Farias (from the Portuguese Fariao), Chicharro (Portuguese too), Duval (with French origin), Gallardo (from the French Gaillard or Gallad), …

The first time we meet a person in Spain we refer as Este señor, El señor or El caballero. These are used in formal situations, in a colloquial speech we normally use the first name of the person.

We use surnames without the words Señor/a for naming persons when are familiar o friends. In these situations the surname becomes a nickname.

The people usually use the following pet names for their pets: Bombón, Cari, Gordo, Amor, Cielo, …

Hi!
I'm from Zaragoza. I think, the most famous first name we have for women is Pilar, because a lot of parents name their daughters after the Virgen del Pilar. For men, there are traditional common names as José, Francisco, Manuel and Antonio.

Fandos, my family name isn't common. I only have met four or five people who have this family name out of my parent's village. But in this village, Samper de Calanda, there are a lot of people with this name. In fact, my father's complete name was Manuel Fandos Fandos. I don't know if this name has a meaning.

In Spain a lot of names are the names of villages or cities, as Federico Mayor Zaragoza. There are names of professions too. For the moment, I think the most famous is our president, Zapatero.

We have very few names from other countries yet, because we have short experience as inmigration country.

When we meet people, usually is the first name the most used with joung people. I think we use without difficulty first names better than family names. Only in formal situations we use family names. I think it is very easy for us know when use first name, and when we are wrong because our converser don't like it, we can go back, and use the family name without difficulty.

I have studied the surnames never can used without a title, at least when we speak about adult people. But for a few years it is very common use so. In formal situations people use titles as Sr / Sra, but not in other situations. We can use surnames without title, if we have several friends or colleagues who have the same first name.

We have a lot of common pet name, as "cielo, cariño, tesoro, mi vida..." and I think we are creative, ans use a lot of other very common words as "pastelito, muñeca, osito, campeón, encanto..." or simply "niño, niña".

1.- I Think that the common names are Maria, Jose and Luis.
2.- Yes, My family name "Esteban" is very common in my country.
3.-Yes, my family name comes from Greece.
4.-No. My name don't mean anything and I don't know any name that it can mean something.
5.-Yes, there are some names, Jhon, Marc or Christian.
6.-If it isn't a bussinness, but also you can use the first name if it is with "Don" or "Doña"
7.-In my country is very common to use the surname. When there are many people with the same name in the job, for example, you can use your surname like name.
8.-There are many names like "Osito","Pequeño", "Preciosa",etc