What's in a name

[Alicia Carrillo <alliecar@...>]

Steve,

 

I must say that prior to doing family research I had no real love and appreciation for the old but beautiful traditional spanish names. Now that I have immersed myself in family research I have grown to love all of these old names.

 

In my family we have had,

 

Restituto, Esperanza, Lauro, Prudencio, Deciderio, Hilario, Gregorio, Concepcion, Vidala, Refugio, Francisca, Pascual, Rebeca, Tiburcia, Josefa, Eulogia, Rafaela, Gertrudis, Atanacia, Crisanta, Emigdio, Micaela, Calixto, Hipolito etc. Aren't they just beautiful, so poetic and lyrical. I am still glad I have the name that I have because living in the USA as an immigrant and with a name that is easy to pronounce is hard enough. I put myself in my dad's place and can understand why he needed to change his name to one that was more mainstream, from Restituto to Jose.

 

So yes Steve your name is very ordinary for a gringo but if you want a change you can call yourself Estevan or Esteban, you choose the spelling.

 

Signing off........Alicia or Alice, I choose to remain Alicia

"Steve G. Apodaca" <sgapodaca@...> wrote:

> Saludos to everyone:
>
> I haven't written messages for a while, but, anyways, here's my 
> contribution to this discussion.
>
> My paternal grandfather's name is a very special case in my family. 
> He was baptized Jose Adolfo Apodaca Ramirez (Adolfo Apodaca, a 
> secas). Twenty-some years later, when he got married, he was 
> described as Ranulfo Apodaca (and he signed his name like that, 
> too). For the rest of his life, he was known to everyone as Arnulfo 
> Apodaca. This is the name that appears on his death certificate. His 
> real name (Adolfo) was never used by the
>  family, and was eventually 
> replaced by "Arnulfo". In fact, an uncle, one of my brothers, and 
> some distant cousin I don't even know, all were given my grandpa's 
> fake name.
>
> Don't you think that Adolfo sounded much better than Arnulfo? Still, 
> it seems that my grandfather preferred the "ugly" name.
>
> My family tree is packed with names that are a little bit odd by 
> today's standards. An example is my maternal grandmother. Her name 
> is Manuela. Her mom's name was Ambrosia Frias. Ambrosia's sisters 
> were Panfila and Rafaela. Ambrosia's mother was Pascuala Aguilar.
>
> Others names that appear in my family tree are Cayetana, Urbano, 
> Gertrudis Aniceta, Pantaleona, Austreberta, Macaria, etc.
>
> I am sure that during their times, those names were not considered 
> odd, and probably, in 100 years, my greatgrandchildren will think 
> that my name and those of my brothers and sisters were weird. 
>
> Saludos,
>
> Steve Apodaca in Winston
>  Salem, NC
>
> PS. By the way, I would like to share this story: my mom was a huge 
> baseball fan. She loved the Dogders from the 1970's and 1980's and 
> one of her favorite players was Steve Garvey. That's why I have this 
> ugly name. :-(