Portugal and Spain have had a significant influence upon each other’s development and cultures as neighbors for ages. They experienced the Age of Exploration together, and their languages changed in a way that they can still understand each other like no other two countries in Europe. In this article, we will attempt to compare Portuguese and Spanish names and show how they are used by people today.
Name Puzzles
Portuguese and Spanish names are all known for being very long and confusing for foreigners. This perception comes from the fact that in these cultures, it is customary for people to have two given names and surnames, and what’s more, these can all be compounds which result in full names similar to puzzles that demand profound cultural understanding to decipher.
In Portuguese-speaking countries, people can legally have up to 6 names, all of these either simple or composite, where they can get two given names and two surnames from both sides of the family (nomes próprios and apelidos). A usual name in Portugal would be, for example, Sofia Matilde Almeida Pais, where Sofia and Matilde are given names, Almeida is the surname of her mother, and Pais is the surname of her father.
In Spanish-speaking regions, the situation is very similar, usually people have a given name and two surnames (nombre and apellidos), first their paternal name and then their maternal name, opposite to the Portuguese order of family names. For example, someone in Spain might be called Juan García y Reyes, García being his apellido paterno (family name of the father) and Reyes being his apellido materno (family name of the mother).
Take for example the following two names. Can you identify their distinctive parts?
Pt.: Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa
Es.: Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón
We can see how both of these names contain two given names and two surnames, some of them simple (e.g. Fernando) and some of them compound (e.g. Magdalena Carmen).
In both languages, compound names count as one name, and people can choose the order of importance for themselves. In terms of spelling, Portuguese and Spanish use prepositions and conjunctions instead of hyphens to connect two distinctive parts of a person’s full name. For example, in many Portuguese names we can find da, das, do, dos and de which are all variants of the preposition de and the definite articles. This way, we can form names such as da Silva or de Sousa, but these can also be omitted. Besides this, people use the conjunction e (meaning and) to connect family names like in the case of Joana Costa e Silva. The Spanish equivalents of these connecting words are de (from), and y or e (and), like in the case of the family names Ponce de León and Tudela y Barreda.
How can they introduce themselves?
After discovering the basic structure of Portuguese and Spanish names, we will take a look at how they are used in these cultures. Firstly, let’s try to find out whether Portuguese and Spanish people have to struggle with their full-length names on a daily basis or not, and how they choose which name to use when introducing themselves, while creating an Instagram account or when addressing their boss.
Usually, in Portugal or Spain, people only have to write down their full names in official contexts (the line for this purpose is usually longer than usual), for example in University where professors have to distinguish between all the people with the names Inês (pt), João (pt) or José (es). Though the paternal family name stands in different places in these two languages, it is customary to be used in polite expressions and titles, stage names, or whenever someone wants to introduce themselves to another person. For example, in the examples from the first section of this article, we’ve seen two iconic figures, who are well-known today only as Fernando Pessoa and Frida Kahlo, where both chose their paternal surnames to do the engravings of their work with.
There are of course exceptions where, for one reason or another, people choose to switch up the conventional order of the two family names, but the customary use of the father’s name remains dominant. When addressing someone in an official context in Spanish, people use their paternal family names or their full surname, for example in the case of a manager named
Enrique Rodriguez Calderón, employees would refer to him as Sr. Rodriguez or Sr. Rodriguez Calderón (where Sr. or señor is the equivalent of “Mr.”. in English). In Portugal, the custom is very similar, but there are times when they use the first name as well, for example when addressing a woman, after titles such as senhora or dona (meaning “Mrs.” or “Lady”). In the case of a person named
Maria do Carmo Abreu, she would be referred to as dona Maria instead of dona Abreu.
Being given the space for so many names, in Portugal and Spain, women usually don’t take their husbands’ surname after marriage, but they add it to their maiden name. When choosing a name for their children, in Spain, they can add the paternal surnames of both parents, while in Portugal, sometimes they even add both of the parents’ names, resulting in two compound surnames which in case of daughters, can be enriched later with another two from her husband. This extreme preserving of all the family names is not so common, however, except in the case of noble families where it’s important to show family roots in people’s names.
The lists of most common given names in Portugal and Spain are almost identical, with terms such as Francisco, Alfonso and Beatriz, or they form pairs such as Maria (pt) – María (es), or Margarida (pt) – Margarita (es). Since many personal and spatial proper names have religious connotations, it is common to combine two given names of different sexus to form a compound given name such as María Jesús (es) or José Maria (pt). In these cases, the one in front shows the gender of the person bearing the name.
Forbidden Names
In terms of names that people can give to their children, Portugal is slightly more restrictive than Spain. In the latter country, besides a few restrictions, parents can choose any name for their children. These exceptions refer to names that lead to confusion about a person’s identity and gender, or family names used as given names. For example, in 2016 a couple wanted to name their child Lobo (meaning “wolf” in Spanish) and they had to go through many arguments with the local registry office to be able to do this, since it is more commonly used as a family name, and it is a name of an animal, having the potential of harming the child.
In Portugal, there is an 80-page list of names that people can choose from for their children and which are banned, with 2,600 names on the rejected list. Usually, the names which appear as forbidden to use are foreign names, locations or pop-culture references, are abbreviations and nicknames, or are simply spelled differently than the original term. For example, Portuguese people are encouraged to avoid names such as Thomas, and use instead the Portuguese equivalent of this name, Tomás. Similarly, you cannot officially have Alex as a first name, since it is only an abbreviated form of Alexandre. Other names that are banned in the country are: Brilhante (meaning “brilliant” in Portuguese), Ivanhoe (19th century novel) and Sayonara (meaning “goodbye” in Japanese).
As we’ve seen, it’s no wonder that people from these countries can communicate by only speaking their own languages. Spanish and Portuguese cultures are both unique and distinct, but they live next to the same ocean, eat the same delicious fruits, and give their children (almost) the same Mediterranean-sounding names.
