names

[loli]

In my country the most common names are, López, Rodríguez, Fernández, García, Martínez...but my family name isn't common. It's from Euskadi.
In Spain we have two surnames. My second surname is Bolívar, like a coin of Venezuela and like a little village of Alava.
There are others names as some English names refer to profesions like Zapatero (shoemaker), Sastre (tailor), Pastor (shepherd), Carpintero (carpenter)...
In my country when I meet someone for the first time I use my first name. Here, in Spain, all the people use always their first name. I ever use surnames without a title when I speak with young people. I would do it because is the correct.
The most common pet name is Cielo (heaven) but Cari (dear), Nena (baby)too.

[Rookie]

Hello Loli,

I’m from Portugal, and here we use the same name structure that you do. Here, my name is very common (Pedro). Bruno, Carlos, João, António and Nuno, for example are also very common for boys, as well as Ana, Joana, Vera, Marta, Maria or Paula for girls. About surnames, we have a lot of “Pires”, “Dias”, “Pinto”, “Martins”, “Oliveira” and so on.

I think that in Spain exist a lot of people with Dias or Diaz as surname (as mine), but I’m not so sure of that about my first name…

About weird names, I can tell you some surnames that are quite odd… Like, Melância (watermelon), Leitão (suckling pig), Dores (pain), Guerra (war), Oliveira (Olive tree), and some other ones that I don’t even know how to translate them… like “Agripino”…

When we meet someone, we use only the first name if that person is about the same age has we do, or younger. Case else, we also use the last name to make it a bit more formal.

About pet names, some persons give their pets names common for people… fortunely that only happen with rich people. The most common name for a dog is “Boby”, as well as “Tareco” for a cat.