Del Taco al Tango - What's in a name?

Ok, so here's my name, Spanish style: 

Juan Patricio Villanueva Mari

When I went to grad school, I was sick of people calling me "John," so I started insisting to people that my name was "John Patrick." 

Of course, Americans refuse to call me "John Patrick," so I started going by "JP" in English.  But soon everyone started calling me "JP," regardless of language.

I think it was Leo that started calling me "Jotapito" in Spanish.  Lili didn't like it at first, but now she's all over it.  Esti tried calling me "JP-tron" for a while, but now she's been won over by "Jotapito" as well. 

No sé mi "middle name" en español, es Desmond y he buscado equivalentes a esto en español pero no he encontrado nada.

Y por eso mi nombre, spanish style, es Cristóbal Desmondo Smith.  Hay una palabra por Smith en español?  Creador o Fabricante o algo así?

My name is so long. Also because I have two first names half my family calls me Liliana the other half calls me Valentina.

People call me Lili, Lil, La Mata, Mata y Matita.

thesmithtopher,

"Smith" could be "Herrero," which is the guy that works with iron.

Pues mi nombre sería Cristóbal Desmondo Herrero, eso me gusta!  Pero hay un equivalente a Desmond aparte de mi creación Desmondo?  jaja

Y otra pregunta si no te molesto con tantas, el apellido Herrero, es tan común como Smith?  Creería que no pero no lo sé, es que nunca he oído este apellido.

Es un buen apellidó, señor.        
El Herrero es la clave, el maestro artesano,  qué hace  las herramientas para todas las demás artesanías.

Another alternative for "Smith" would be "Ferrer," or "Ferrero"  because there used to be a lot of free variation between /f/ and /h/ back in the day. 

Both "Herrero" and "Ferrero" exist as last names, but I don't think they're quite as popular as the name "Smith" in the English speaking world.

It is possible that smiths are just naturally fecund, JP, hence their prevalence.

I wonder if the smith - farrier division exists in spanish as well, JP.

A smith is an engineer who makes whatever is needed,  he may or may not have a clue about horses. A farrier is person that is one third veterinarian, he makes shoes and cares for horses, mules, donkeys, oxen, and the like. s/He may be a smith as well, but s/he only needs to be able to make shoes (and the tools to make the shoes)

He may also make the tackle for the horses and wagons.

for want of a nail,
the shoe was lost,
for want of a shoe,
the horse was lost,
for want of the horse,
the rider was lost,

for want of the rider,
the battle was lost,
for want of the battle,
the Kingdom was lost

and all for the want of a horse shoe nail.

DonPeriego,

I am told, that in London, there are still houses that have deep grooves worn into the kitchen window sills. Nails were a cottage industry often made by women working a small forge on the kitchen flue.

They would buy nail stock (rod) drag it home and feed it into their work station by the stove by dragging it in the window.

The nail wasn't the problem,

it was for want of a WOMAN, smith.

Amigos....en Méjico,mi nombre es,<Beto> .Creo que es muy común....Pero cuándo les digo a los Méjicanos que mi nombre es ,<Roberto Comoqueso>,ellos reían a carcajadas.....(hm-m-m...muy extraño....)☺☺☺♪♪♪

I like to watch the telenovelas on Spanish language TV.  The names used in two recent telenovelas come to mind.

In Victoria, the main character switched between using names Victoria de Mendoza and Victoria Mendoza.  After her divorce, she used Victoria Santiesteben.

In Zorro there was a character, which unfortunately I don't remember all of his last name, but it was something that ended in ... del Campo.

no existe "middle name" en espanol :-) great stuff

cobre

new one on me i'm afraid. but it sounds about right. trying to get the landlord to repair the window sill would take forever.

I always leave this Spanish name discussion confused. My problem is mathematics. If everyone has 2 apellidos, when they have kids, combining them would make 4 apellidos. Then, those offspring would have 8... Obviously, this isn't the case. So which of your 2 apellidos do you decide is your one true apellido worthy of passing onto your kids?

discovery,

The apellidos that get passed on to your children would always be the paternal apellidos. So a child's first apellido would be the surname from their paternal grandfather and the second apellido would be the surname from their maternal grandfather.

Ex. María Torres Blanco marries Raúl Villa Sanz and they have a son named Mateo. Mateo's name would be Mateo Villa Torres. Then Mateo marries Lucía Domínguez Silva and they have a daughter named Estela. So Estela's full name is Estela Villa Domínguez.

I hope that helped.

@zee10: Thanks! Now I'll be able to sleep tonight =).

My name in English is Alma Hart.  If you say that as though you're from the U.S. south, it sounds as though you're saying "all my heart."  Corny though it is, I've still always liked that. 

Additionally, with 'el alma' meaning soul in Spanish, my name is sorta 'heart and soul.'

Maybe in Spanish my name would be Alma del Corazon . . .

When I visited Ecuador a few months back and introduced myself, people seemed unable to get the name, Greg, but as soon as I said Gregorio, it was not a problem.    In the simple Spanish dictionary I use as a reference, I notice no words with the "Gre" sound, and wonder if it's just not commonly recognizable sound in Spanish.

(I also had the same problem when I was in the Peace Corps in Malaysia -- no on could pronounce my name -- the "gre" sound was just too confusing, so I started going by gb instead.)

I wonder if JP, with his linguitic expertise, could comment about some common differences in between Spanish and English sounds (such as the rolling r), and the difficulties we both have in learning to make them.

Hola Gregorio.

Check out some of the Pa' que sepas show JP explains some of the different sounds in Spanish and English.

"Gr" is hard for Spanish speakers because we dont have this sound, this why people couldn't understand you. I like Gregorio though.

Alma!

I love the Alma del corazon, that would be the soul of the heart!

¡Hola!

Hace dos semanas aprendí de la existencia del infinitivo compuesto. Antes nunca me había dado cuenta de él. Por eso me soprendí mucho
cuando me di cuenta que Lili usó el infinitivo compuesto en esta línea:

"Muchisimas gracias por haber venido."

Pero no sé cómo usar el infinitivo compuesto con pronombres. Es corecto decir:

"Muchisimas gracias por haber usadolo."?

o debe ser:

"Muchisimas gracias por haberlo usado."?

Gracias, Martinillo

Creo que tengo la respuesta de mi pregunta:

"haber usadolo": 1 Google hit

"haberlo usado": 25400 Google hits

Bueno, los numeros me resultan bastante claros. :)

Martinillo

Esti

¿Hay apellidos Basques?

stevestrv, por supuesto que tenemos apellidos vascos, algunos ejemplos:

Etxeberria, Etxezarreta,Etxeberria, Esnal, Usandizaga, Urretabizkaia, Galparsoro, Uranga, Arrieta, Berasategi, Lazkano, Ezeiza, Urdanpileta, Altuna, Mendizabal, etc.

martinillo, efectivamente, la respuesta correcta es "haberLO usado".

En cuanto a la duda de "haberlo usado" o "haber usadolo", hay que tener en mente que las formas de complemento directo/indirecto de los pronombres personales unicamente pueden "adjuntarse" al infinitivo, gerundio e imperativo.

Saludos

esti & karinioshka: ¡gracias!

karinioshka: lo que me confundí fue que el infinitivo compuesto consiste de dos palabras: "haber usado"
 o "haber venido", o sea el participio es parte del infinitivo compuesto. Por eso no supe dónde poner los pronombres.

2martinillo

Un infinitivo compuesto en si es el verbo haber en infinitivo y el participio pasado (el tal llamado PPP) del verbo sem'antico.

Pues, lo u'nico que te queda es adjuntar el "lo" al infinitivo del verbo haber

Well, Roush is German and it means Borracho, so I guess my name in Spanish would be

Bea o Beatrice Borracho;-)

¿Que es Allan Stewart Königsberg?

Esta es el nombre de nacimiento, ¿Que ese?

cobre,

no se como traducir los nombres, pero el apellido seria Villareal.

froush1: I guess you are refering to the German word "Rausch", which is pronounced like "Roush". "Rausch" is a noun, not an adjective; for example, you could say: "Ich habe einen Rausch." Literally: "I have an intoxication."

Creo que la palabra española es "borrachera". Entonces: Bea Borrachera. Suena bien!

Sharaf

Gracias!

A mi me dicen Matita. ¿A ti como te llaman?

No me gusta mi nombre porque es demasiado largo y difícil de pronunciar

Sharaf is just one half of my second name. Abd-Urrazak is my first name and Sharaf-Aldeen is my second name,

and also my name is not a latino name its an Arabic

Co mi nombres en español no tengo problema- soy Alejandra María. María es muy popular como segundo nombre en mi país, Polonia -porque Polacos el grande parte son catholicos tambien.                                   El apellido es el cuento mas díferente. Tengo apellido muy "Polaco": Budzyńska que significo en viejo-Polaco, mas o menos una persona que es vigilante. No tengo idea como puede ser el version español de mi apellido.

Me gusta el nombre de Alejandra María María. Me gustan cuando se repiten los nombres.

Mi tambien. :) Es el nombre María Magdalena popular en Latino America? Se trata como un nombre o dos nombres? En Polonia se trata como un nombre.