Naming System in Spain
Currently in Spain, people bear a single or composite given name (nombre) and two surnames (apellidos). A composite given name comprises two (not more) single names; for example Juan Pablo is considered not to be a first and a second forename, but a single composite forename. Traditionally, a person's first surname is the father's first surname (apellido paterno), and the second one is the mother's first surname (apellido materno). However, gender equality law has allowed surname transposition since 1999, subject to the condition that every sibling must bear the same surname order recorded in the Registro Civil (civil registry), but there have been legal exceptions. From 2013, if the parents of a child are unable to agree on order of surnames, an official decides which is to come first.
For example, if a man named Eduardo Fernández Garrido marries a woman named María Dolores Martínez Ruiz and have a child named José, there are several legal options, but their child would most usually be known as José Fernández Martínez.
Each surname can also be composite, the parts usually linked by the conjunction y or e (and), by the preposition de (of) or by a hyphen. For example, a person's name might be Juan Pablo Fernández de Calderón García-Iglesias, consisting of a forename (Juan Pablo), a paternal surname (Fernández de Calderón) and a maternal surname (García-Iglesias).
Read more about this topic: Catalan Name
Famous quotes containing the words naming, system and/or spain:
“The night is itself sleep
And what goes on in it, the naming of the wind,
Our notes to each other, always repeated, always the same.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Those words freedom and opportunity do not mean a license to climb upwards by pushing other people down. Any paternalistic system that tries to provide for security for everyone from above only calls for an impossible task and a regimentation utterly uncongenial to the spirit of our people.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“How the devil am I to prove to my counsel that I don’t know my murderous impulses through C.G. Jung, jealousy through Marcel Proust, Spain through Hemingway ... It’s true, you need never have read these authorities, you can absorb them through your friends, who also live all their experiences second-hand. What an age!”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)