What were the Spanish thinking? What mindset was in play in the 1849 Claveria List of Surnames, a listing from which a male indio head of the family supposedly chose a Spanish last name for himself and his kin?
Was the matter of surname-appropriation really for him, the indio, to decide? Or, were the surnames, at least in some instances, bequeathed? For the favored, a favorable family name, something like Sabido (Sp. "well-informed", "knowledgeable"), Verdadero ( "truthful"), Amante ("a loving friend"), or Hidalgo ("illustrious"). For the disfavored, something less complimentary, a last name that will remind generations of an ancestor's misdemeanor or misdeed. Such was the case of a former colleague from Batangas whose branch of the family was stripped by a cura parocco of the upbeat Laurel last name and promptly listed in church records under the name Terrible, thanks to an ancestor's frequent Sunday drunkenness long ago. Was the same friar displeasure in play in the surname Enojoso which means annoying in Spanish? Or the family name Pesimo which means wretched?
If the native Pinoy really had a say on the matter, wouldn't they have chosen Santa Maria, de Jesus, Santa Cruz, or de la Cruz? In a very Catholic milieu, one can't go wrong with a last name that conjures the divine. Or, were the surnames, in some cases, meant to point to a physical trait or disposition, seen in the surnames Enano, Galan and Agravante, which incidentally are also Spanish words- respectively an adjective ("short", "very stunted"), a noun (" a handsome fellow") and a verb ("to aggravate or cause additional burden to an unfortunate circumstance").
Whether handpicked by the unsuspecting native himself or appropriated for him by a condescending Spanish friar civil official, this manner of naming people is consistent to our native penchant for bansag, the lighthearted folk name-calling that points to a physical feature or characteristic common in a family, a sort of synecdoche- where a single dominant physical trait represents the whole. Persisting for many generations now, particularly in the Rinconada area of Camarines Sur and environs, a bansag, more than an endearment between individuals and clans, has practical functions, much like the systematic hispanization of native family names in 1849 which, among other things, pointed to an individual's place of origin, expedited the identification of family lineages, and others. One's bansag, as it situates one in his immediate geography, solidifies his sense of community, molds his identity and selfhood. Tangad, for example, a Bikol verb which means "to raise one's head, as when speaking to a taller person," is a bansag exclusively in reference to a certain branch of the Rull clan who are merchants and market sellers and whose heights average 5'10'', and not the other Rull branches, the civil servants and professionals in private practice, who are of smaller physical stature.
Roused by sounds and ritual symbols, I always have a field day in ceremonies where family names are called out in public sound systems, such as the capping ceremony of two nieces, then nursing students, that I went to sometime ago. To ease the restlessness that afflicts me when sitting in one place for too long, I mentally played a matching game, matching the person onstage to the family name called out on the loudspeaker: does the Calvo have a receding hairline? The Crespo with curly hair? The Hermoso or Hermosa of pleasing physical appearance? The Pardo in question of somewhat dark skin? The Delgado of slender built?
And when in a queue, say in a government office, one hears, apart from adjectives pertaining to physical attributes, an indeterminate number of Spanish adjectives pointing to a mental or emotional trait: Sabio ("wise"), Calma ("calm"), Lagrimoso ("tearful"), Recto ("upright"), Buena/Bueno ("good", "kind"), Amador ("loving"), Clemente ("merciful"), Caro ("expensive", "beloved"), Lozano ("vigorous").
While Santos, de los Santos, Martirez, de los Martires, Angeles, de los Angeles and Protomartir invoke piety; and Infante ("prince"), Patrimonio ("heritage", "inheritance"), Rey ("king"), de los Reyes ("of the kings"), Palacio and Imperial are quaintly aristocratic; some surnames seem to lack grace and favor, pointing to an ordinariness that may have been the actual life circumstance of the bearer in the colonial era.
While Flores ("flowers"), de la Rosa ("of the rose"), Primavera ("primrose", "springtime"), and Maravilla ("marigold"), de la Paz ("of the peace", "of the peacefulness"), Florida ("flowery"), Verano ("summer"), Alba ("dawn"), and Luna ("moon") seem decorous and even romantic; other Filipino family names are Spanish common nouns, names of everyday things: Balde ("pail", "bucket"), Postigo ("small back door"), Baldosa ("floor tile"), Espejo ("mirror"), Mesa ("table"), Atadero ("rope"), Azada ("hoe"), Madera ("wood"), Correa ("strap", "thong"), Calzado ("footwear"). Losa, a common Filipino last name, is also the Bikol term for plates, bowls and saucers, and clearly the indigenized form of the Spanish loza which means crockery (particularly the earthenware kind), not easily reconcilable with the morbid losa which means tombstone in Spanish.
Days after a Paquiao victory, while looking for a place to eat in a mall, a friend blurted out, "If Muhammad Ali was Filipino, his name would be Celso Arcilla." "Say what?" another friend asked, bewildered. "Cassius Clay, Celso Arcilla. Get the drift?" the smart aleck replied. Arcilla, of course, is the Spanish word for your everyday clay. Would an Avellana be pleased when he finds out his family name means hazel nut? Would one be pleased if he discovers his family name, the regal-sounding Almendra actually means almond? Would a Manzano love apples more and perhaps appropriate the fruit's likeness, if they had one, in their coat-of-arms? Would one like it if his family name translates to horseradish (Rabano) or hatchet (Machado)?
A common noun as a family name could, of course, be quite quaint in that long-ago era, particularly if it is evocative of elegance or strength, brings to mind something European, thus, it might not have been so bad if yours is Crisol ("crucible"), Regala ("gunwale"), de la Fuente ("of the fountain"), de la Torre ("of the tower"), Torre ("tower"), Peña ("rock"), Batalla ("battle"), Bordado ("embroidery", "needlework"), Piano, or Jardin ("garden"). They were, of course, of much lower prestige value than Magno ("great"), Caballero ("a gentleman"), Lucero ("a bright star"), Lumbrera (" a luminary"), Genio ("a genius") or the names of Spanish cities Valencia, Barcelona, Toledo, Madrid, Villadolid, Avila, Ferrer, Caceres, Aragon, Toledo and Segovia, slipped into the list by a homesick Castila maybe, who knows?
Given the class conscious society where the social divide is absolute, was the list meant to further draw the line between the insider from the outsider, the haves from the have-nots, the Noble ("aristocratic") from the Pobre ("indigent"), the Agregado ("attaché") from the Magistrado ("magistrate", in the Spanish era a lowly court position), the Abogado and Doctor the from the Herrera ("blacksmith"), the General, Capital and the Coronel from the Corporal and the Ballestero ("someone who operates a crossbow"), the Labrador ("manual laborer", "worker") from the Patron, the Pastora ("shepherdess") from the Estrella ("star") and the Duena ("owner of a house")? the Negrito from the Aleman ("German"), Romano, and the Ingles ("Englishman")?
Either as descriptive phrases or set phrases, villa rico, villa fuerte, villa señor and villa nueva, and their incarnations as Filipino family names Villarico, Villafuerte, Villaseñor and Villanueva, seem to signify acceptability; the bearer, an insider, of some social standing, and more importantly, accessible for parish census and taxation purposes. From the Spanish noun villa ("small town"), a synonym of poblacion, Villa (or de Villa) signify that the bearer is, among other things, within the Spanish scheme of things, inaabot ng kampana, starkly juxtaposing him against the outsider, the social outcast that is the cimarron or remontado, outlawed infideles who retreated to the forests and mountains to elude force labor and taxation- pointing to the very acute concept of insider-outsider in the Spanish colonial period.
Although Abad (abbot), Monasterio ("monastery"), Confesor ("confessor"), Monje ("monk"),Querubim ("cherubim") and Apostol ("apostle") may have also appeared in the Claveria list, the surnames in the Spanish Philippines indicated a direct friar linkage, appropriated for friar offsprings, the same way Cruz ("cross") was appropriated for the illiterate farm hands who, when signing a legal form, merely drew a cross on the line. Did the mestizillo features and an appellation with celestial undertones, such as those above or family names such as San Pedro, Santa Ana, San Luis, Santiago (St. James, patron saint of Spain), Paraiso ("heaven", "paradise") and Divino ("divine"), spell some privileges when one, say, entered parochial school and colegio ("secondary school")? These days, the leaning is, of course, for half-breeds with foreign-sounding last names and a twang, a predilection one sees in talent searches and beauty contests.
What's in a name? a Pinoy writer once asked reminiscent of Shakespeare. Everything, he answered in the same breath. Would you worry if your family name translates to a certain four-legged animal, winged creature or sea mammal that breathes through a blowhole on the top of its head? Because animals are not created equal (but human beings are, if I may add), Cordero ("lamb") and Paloma ("dove"), because of their pronounced Christian denotations, are not in the same league as Ante ("elk", "buffalo"), Elefante, or Delfin ("dolphin"); Aguila and de Leon are not quite the same as Alano ("mastiff, a big smooth-haired dog of often tan or grayish coat and dark face").
If you are among the few who have retained your native last name, then good for you. Some have cadence, a certain lilt: Ampongan, Gatdula, Gonowon, Bulalacao, Lakandula. Others seem defiant, proud: Magtarayo, Guinoo, Guinto, Matubis, definitely an asset especially if they reflect character. Quite a number cause dubiety, though: Magdaraog, Namoro, Casuncad, Tosoc. A former classmate, a Macauyam, have insisted on stressing her last name on the third syllable, perhaps to demarcate it from the Bikol adjective makauyam, stressed on the second syllable, which means annoying. A personable school teacher from a Cavite, a Miss Baculao, pronounces her surname as Ba-ku-la-o, gleefully unaware that in early orthography, the letter O is pronounced as W like the O in Malinao, Albay or Baao, Camarines Sur or when one says the native last names Caayao, Pacquiao, Sumayao or Agcaoili. But then again, who would want to be called Miss Bakulaw, anyway?
(To be continued)