Tagalog People - Name

Name

The name Tagalog comes from either the native term tagá-ilog, meaning 'people living along the river', or another native term, tagá-alog, meaning 'people living along the ford', a ford being a shallow part of a river or stream where people, animals, or vehicles can cross it. The prefix taga- means "coming from" or "native of", while the word ilog means 'river'. Translated, tagá-ilog means 'coming from the river' or 'native of the river', and tagá-alog means 'coming from the ford' or 'native of the ford' with 'the' being implied in both cases. Either way, the original name has been contracted to become simply Tagalog. In more recent times, the people of this ethnolinguistic group rarely refer to themselves as "Tagalog", and instead, refer to themselves simply as "Filipino".