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; 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 Eduardo, there are several legal options, but their child would most usually be known as Eduardo Fernández Martínez.
Each surname can also be composite, the parts usually linked 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: Spanish Naming Customs
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“See, see where Christ’s blood streams in the firmament!
One drop would save my soul—half a drop! ah, my Christ!—
Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!—
Yet will I call on him!—O, spare me, Lucifer!—
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—Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)
“Books are for the most part willfully and hastily written, as parts of a system to supply a want real or imagined.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Stefan Zweig (18811942)