Need help with Spanish naming customs

[Roivann]

Is there anyone here who can explain Spanish naming conventions to me? I read the Wikipedia article, and it's confusing. Specifically, is there a given middle name? My understanding is that there is not, but two surnames (one from each parent). If this is the case, what determines the order of the surnames? Any help would be appreciated.

[Shin]

From the limited Spanish lessons I took, it's First name, followed by the father's first surname and then the mother's. That's at least the most traditional way at least, they are other options nowadays.

[ShadielTH]

Well, who can explain this better than a Spanish person? Answer: no one.

Let's see... In Spain (dunno about other countries that speak Spanish) there's two surnames, and it goes like this:

[Name, Father's First Surname, Mother's First Surname]

Now, a lot of people in Spain (I think it happens in a lot of other countries as well. Once again, I dunno) have two names. If that's the case, that person's full name would be:

[First Name, Second Name, Father's First Surname, Mother's First Surname]

And finally, even if nowadays we don't use it... In the Ye Olde Spain, we had to use EIGHT surnames to determine that we were of... uhm... "clean blood", meaning that we didn't have any Jewish relatives. The full name in that era would be like this:

[Name, Father's First Surname, Mother's First Surname, Grandfather's First Surname (Or Father's Second Surname, it's the same), Grandmother's First Surname (or Mother's Second Surname), Greatgrandfather's First Surname, Greatgrandmother's First Surname, Greatgreatgrandfather's First surname, Greatgreatgrandmother's first surname]

But like I said, this last naming convention isn't used anymore (I like to use my first four surnames, tho), and instead the ones we used are the two first ones.

Anyway, I hope this cleared things up for you.

(I hope I remembered my history lessons correctly with that last one...)

EDIT: Agh. Forgot something. This should be obvious, but just in case... Let's say a child whose Father's first surname is "Gonzalez", and his/her mother's first surname is also "Gonzalez". In this case, the surnames will not be merged into one, and the child's full name would be: whateverthechild'snamewouldbe Gonzalez Gonzalez.

Edited November 6, 2014 by ShadielTH

[Naughx]

^ Interesting.

Us for french canadians it looks more like [Given Name, Mother's First Surname, Father's First Surname] (At least for me - Surnames order can change)

You also can have [Given Name, Father's First Surname] which is more common.

But quite some time ago (50~60 years) it looked like this -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_name#French_Canadian_names

Edited November 6, 2014 by Naughx

[Zanarkin]

Well, who can explain this better than a Spanish person? Answer: no one.

Let's see... In Spain (dunno about other countries that speak Spanish) there's two surnames, and it goes like this:

[Name, Father's First Surname, Mother's First Surname]

Now, a lot of people in Spain (I think it happens in a lot of other countries as well. Once again, I dunno) have two names. If that's the case, that person's full name would be:

[First Name, Second Name, Father's First Surname, Mother's First Surname]

And finally, even if nowadays we don't use it... In the Ye Olde Spain, we had to use EIGHT surnames to determine that we were of... uhm... "clean blood", meaning that we didn't have any Jewish relatives. The full name in that era would be like this:

[Name, Father's First Surname, Mother's First Surname, Grandfather's First Surname (Or Father's Second Surname, it's the same), Grandmother's First Surname (or Mother's Second Surname), Greatgrandfather's First Surname, Greatgrandmother's First Surname, Greatgreatgrandfather's First surname, Greatgreatgrandmother's first surname]

But like I said, this last naming convention isn't used anymore (I like to use my first four surnames, tho), and instead the ones we used are the two first ones.

Anyway, I hope this cleared things up for you.

(I hope I remembered my history lessons correctly with that last one...)

EDIT: Agh. Forgot something. This should be obvious, but just in case... Let's say a child whose Father's first surname is "Gonzalez", and his/her mother's first surname is also "Gonzalez". In this case, the surnames will not be merged into one, and the child's full name would be: whateverthechild'snamewouldbe Gonzalez Gonzalez.

This is how it is done in Colombia too, want to say that its like that for most of Central and South America but I am not too sure.

Edited November 8, 2014 by SlayerX

[Yune Liberty]

I think I can explain it to you, I'm from Spain. :D

As Shadiel told before, the order is "Name - First Father Surname - First Mother Surname". For example, Pedro García Martínez (his name, his father's first surname and his mother's first surname). This is the most common case (and it's my case too) but now your parents can choose the order, being the mother's first and the father's second.

This happens because when two people marries, they keep their original surnames. Following the previous example, the family of Pedro would be the "García Martínez family", not the "father's first surname family".

If you have any question, please, contact me. I'll try to help you :3

EDIT: Agh. Forgot something. This should be obvious, but just in case... Let's say a child whose Father's first surname is "Gonzalez", and his/her mother's first surname is also "Gonzalez". In this case, the surnames will not be merged into one, and the child's full name would be: whateverthechild'snamewouldbe Gonzalez Gonzalez.

I laughed when I saw this because once I met a boy with the same name and same surnames, something like "Juan Juan Juan" :P