Hi all, spanish people have two surnames, first one is the father’s first surname and the second one is the mother’s first surname. For example, if these two people have a child:
Luis Aguilar López
Ana Fernández Mena
Tha name of the boy will be:
Antonio Aguilar Fernández.
However, after reading the manual and searching the forum / reddit I can’t figure out a way to configure Gramps to automatically fill the children surnames for spanish people. In the example above, this option:
Will erroneously produce Antonio Aguilar López (the first and second surnames from the father) instead of Antonio Aguilar Fernández.
As a result I have to manually edit all children names for all families, which is a little bit cumbersome.
Is there a way to do what I’d like to do? Any help is greatily appreciated.
NOTE: the “combination of mother’s and father’s surname” option works as expected when parents have a single surname, which, as I said, is never the case for spanish people (and I think for all spanish speaking countries)
As a “jumping off point”, here are a few items in the Bug/Feature reporting system. Maybe this could fit in one of those? Some already have some interesting discussion points.
This 9612: Problem adding parents [with Latin names] is related to generating Parent surname from Children rather than the other way around. But the related ‘Commit’ shows how (and where) some of these functions are coded:
This report is closely related to what I’m describing here, in fact I read it before posting, but he says children receive the right surnames (first father’s surname, and first mothers surname), both as patrilineal.
As explained above, I cannot reproduce this, in my example children receive first and second father’s surnames.
The second problem (wrong inherited surnames) seems to appear only when adding family members from the relationships screen, if you use the Family screen to add members, children will inherite the right surnames, but both as patrilineal.
However I don’t see an option to edit posts in the bugtracker to add this info, I guess a minimum of posts are required for that
The “surname guessing” feature isn’t currently applying any transformation to ‘origin’ portions of the names during a ‘guess’.
I’d wished it would insert a ‘Patrilineal’ when adding a child with the default Guessing. Or a Patronymic/Matronymic origin for Icelandic surname guessing.
The current feature just copies the ‘origin’ value from one generation to the next.
In the multiple name scenario, won’t the Patrilineal also be the ‘Primary’ surname? So Gramps should be copying the Primary surnames from Father & Mother and ignoring the other multiple surname rows. (Ideally, it would transform the inherited mother’s primary surname from Patrilineal to Martilineal and set the inherited father’s Patrilineal surname to be Primary in the child.)
So the “wrong” origin is actually a new feature request. The bug is that the “Combination” surname guessing is inheriting more than the Primary from the parent’s multiple surnames, correct?
At this point, and after asome experimentation, I’m pretty sure the problem lies in the “Relationships” module. Adding children and sibling from there leads to incorrect results, but adding children (and parents) from the Family scren works nicely with spanish (multiple) surnames.
As an expert in Spanish conventions for surname inheritance, Perplexity.ai summarizes the terminology and practices related to patrilineal and matrilineal surnames given to offspring, as well as how these names are used in everyday life and formal contexts.
Surname Structure
In Spanish naming conventions, a person typically has two surnames:
Patrilineal Surname (Apellido Paterno): The first surname, traditionally inherited from the father.
Matrilineal Surname (Apellido Materno): The second surname, traditionally inherited from the mother.
The combination of these two surnames is commonly referred to as “apellidos compuestos” (compound surnames) or “doble apellido” (double surname) by the general public and in genealogical research. In English, this is sometimes called a double-barrelled name, although in Spanish tradition, these surnames are typically not hyphenated.
Key Points on Surname Inheritance
Transmission: The patrilineal surname is typically passed down through generations, while the matrilineal surname changes with each generation.
Order: Traditionally, the patrilineal surname comes first, followed by the matrilineal surname.
Legal Requirements: In Spain, individuals are legally required to have two surnames.
Flexibility: Since 1999, parents in Spain have had the option to choose the order of surnames for their children, though the traditional order is still overwhelmingly preferred.
Consistency: All siblings must share the same surname order.
Conventions for Addressing Individuals
Informal: In everyday situations, people are usually addressed by their given name and first surname (typically the paternal surname). For example, “Penélope Cruz” for Penélope Cruz Sánchez.
Formal: The complete name, including both surnames, is reserved for legal, formal, and documentary matters.
Exceptions: When the first surname is very common, both surnames are sometimes systematically used to create a more distinguishable name. For instance, “Federico García Lorca” or “Pablo Ruiz Picasso”.
Professional/Public Life: In some cases, particularly for public figures, it’s common to use only the second surname if it’s more distinctive. For example, “Lorca” for García Lorca, or “Picasso” for Ruiz Picasso.
Alphabetization: Regardless of how a person is commonly addressed, for alphabetization purposes, the full surname (both paternal and maternal) is used.
It’s important to note that while these conventions exist, modern Spanish law allows for more flexibility in surname order and transmission, promoting gender equality in naming customs. Additionally, the choice of how to address someone can also depend on personal preference and the specific context of the interaction.
