I was told that this message was bounced by the Yahoo group. Hope it
goes through this time. Emilie
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 5:45 PM
Subject: Re: [ranchos] Double surnames
Aha! Now I think I know how surnames came to be so confusing in
Mexico. John's example of his wife tacking on her mother's and her
husband's surnames to her father's surname, may explain part of the reason why
people in Mexico were so inconsistent in the use of surnames. It is like
too many cooks in the kitchen spoiling the soup. When you are dealing with
more than one surname, it is very likely for clerical errors to be made in
documents when such a complex system is used.
I recall working in a large county hospital in California where many
non-English speaking Mexican citizens came for treatment, and the confusion with
the surnames that would cause several charts under various names to be set up
for each patient, a different one almost at every visit in the various
departments, which drove the docs crazy trying to find lab results for the tests
the patient swore they had taken. It all depended on the clerk's
understanding of what a computer would do with a string of surnames (some would
get truncated causing some strange spellings and some clerks would eliminate
spaces trying to make all the stated names fit in the first name and surname
fields causing other problems of elongated names) if they tried to enter them
all. This often caused the re-registration of the patient with a new
chart.
Early in my career in the 1960's, when I was a registrar, I tried to
explain to the Mexican patients that we could only enter one surname in the
computer, the father's or the husband's. Women would exclaim, (in Spanish)
"but that is not my name--how will people know it is me?" I told them we
would know if they were consistent with one surname as Americans are, and that
the birth-date would indicate which Maria Garcia, etc. she was. Most
clerks raised in this country did not know of the practice in Mexico, others
would ask which was the father's or husband's name. Sometimes the women
would only state their maiden names when the visit was for themselves in an
adult clinic, but of course they gave their husband's surname for the children
in the pediatric side. Later, another clerk would notice the "mismatched"
surnames on the ID cards and change the child's surname to match the mother's,
etc., etc.
Also, with the example of Rodrigo de Vivar, I can understand why some of my
ancestors used surnames like simply "de Olague" or "de Espalin" or "de
Valencia" without any other name attached to it (no father's or mother's
surname?). So, I know where the places "Olague" and "Valencia" are, but
where in the world is a place called "Espalin"? Now I know why the name
Cabeza de Baca became simply Baca and de la Vega, just Vega. I have
collateral lines on my mother's side named Baca and I wondered how their
ancestor came to have such a weird name as Cabeza de Vaca. Also another
surname "Ladron de" (I forget the rest of it---all I recall is the Ladron--why
would anyone want to perpetuate the fact that their ancestor was a famous
thief?) Well, that is another mystery.
Emilie Garcia
Port Orchard, WA ---
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 5:26
PM
Subject: [ranchos] Double surnames
Use of the "de" in double surnames.
My wife was a
Mexican citizen living in Mexico when I married her.
Her maiden name
was: Isaura Martinez Vallejo. Martinez was her
father's last name
and Vallejo her mother's. After we got married
and she was
processing her papers to become a legal resident, her
name became: Isaura
Martinez Vallejo de Gonzalez. The part "de
Gonzalez" was added to
designate her marriage to a "Gonzalez" That
is how her name appears on her
Green Card and also on her Mexican
Passport. Once in the United States,
she only uses Isaura Gonzalez,
and that is how it appears on her American
Passport and all of her
legal documents. She is a U.S. Citizen now.
I lived in Mexico for 10 years and noticed that that was the costum
( law ? very possible, since that is how it used on official
documents
) "de" is used like Mrs. is used here.
I believe "de" was also used in
a different way when it was part of
a name of a MALE to designate his
place of origin. Rodrigo Diaz de
Vivar, better known as "El Cid" was
from the town of Vivar, just
outside of Burgos, in Northern
Spain.
Ajay: I hope I answered at least one half of your question. I am
sure there is somebody in the group with more extensive knowledge on
this subject.
John Gonzalez
Wildomar,
CA.
by Date 
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