Two Last Names - Dos Apellidos

In America, I had not noticed the long Hispanic names. Ever since we arrived in Spain, I noticed that the Spanish people, without exception had very long names. I later learned that they actually didn’t have long names or middle names (sometimes they do of course); in fact, they have two last names!

In Spanish, the last name is called apellido, which actually means surname. So, since Spanish has two of them, they have apellidos like our good friend’s name: David Ferrairó Escriva.

The first surname is called apellido primero and comes from the father’s first surname and the second surname is called apellido Segundo that comes from the mother’s first surname (also mother’s maiden name for it comes from her dad).

When a woman gets married, her apellido primero remains the same but her apellido segundo becomes her husband’s apellido primero. Some instances, there maybe ‘de’ between the surnames to emphasize the marriage bond. No change happens to the men’s surnames due to marriage.

When the children are born, the same system is used to continue the cycle: if we use our friend, David, as example, here is what happens:

David Farrairó Escriva and Suni Perales Farrairó have a daughter Maria Farrairó Perales. When she gets married, she will lose the Perales and no one will know she was related to Suni just from the last name.

Shortly, the surname from the male side perpetuates but the female side eventually gets lost. Well, I say this is better system than we have where the identity of mother’s ancestry is lost at marriage and neither gender of the kids carry mother’s maiden surname. At least in Spanish model, until the female child gets married and the male child deceases, they are identified by both parents’ surnames. Wait a minute, they only inherent the mother’s father’s surname. So all the apellido primeros are male-related!

When asked, the Spanish people explained all of this so as a matter of fact, which made me feel even more stupid for frying my brain trying to comprehend the connections. Now that I figured it all out, it looks so obvious.

I don’t know how they are handled in Spanish speaking countries, but I can see the problems that this system might create with listing, sorting and storing names. Because the first surname seems to be more important, the second surname drop after marriage may create loss of information.