by an.fandos » Thu Mar 12, 2009 6:58 pm
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".