Geni naming conventions - the Philippines (Proposed)
See the projects Geni naming conventions and Geni naming conventions - data entry for general guidance.
- Use ordinary case. Name Preference Settings can be used to change how names are displayed to your personal preference.
- Place the last name a person was born with in the Birth Surname field and the last name they died with in the Surname field. All nicknames go in the “also known as” field.
- The Philippines were colonized by Spain, so Spanish language names are often seen.
- Immigrants from other countries may best be shown using both their original language name and their anglicized name. Additionally, a name change is well depicted by use of both “original” and “last” names.
Pre-colonial period
- Make Filipino as the default name, unless they were from Bicol region in which Central Bicolano will be the default name instead.
- Pre-colonial Filipinos were usually mononymous. If this is the case, leave both Last Name and Birth Surname fields blank. Otherwise, put the first given name on the First Name field and the last given name on both the Last Name and Birth Surname fields.
Spanish period: Pre-Clavería decree
- Make Spanish as the default name. Both family names have "y" (or in case the next syllable starts sounding with "i", "e" will be used instead) conjunction between them.
- Filipinos during the Spanish colonial period before Narciso Clavería's decree usually have at least two given names, with the last name not being considered as the family name. If this is the case, put the first given name on the First Name field, the succeeding (but not the last) given names on the Middle Name field, and the last given name on both the Last Name and Birth Surnames.
Spanish period: Post-Clavería decree
- Make Spanish as the default name, with Filipino name (modern-day naming standards in the Philippines which is explained under Modern period) in Filipino.
- Due to Narciso Clavería's decree, most Filipinos were obliged to either replace or append their original last name with a family name which is compliant with the decree. If this is the case, put the original last name on the Birth Surname field, and their Claverian name (whether replaced or appended) on the Last Name field. For example, Mercado is the original last name, but the family name Rizal was later appended, becoming Rizal Mercado.
- Married Filipino women who died on or before June 17, 1949 were not required to use their husband's last name as their last name, though you may opt to do so as either of the following:
- Put "de" (if married) or "Viuda de" (abbreviated as "Vda. de", if widowed) between their birth last name and husband's last name. (Example: Aurora as First Name, Antonia as Middle Name, Aragón Viuda de Quezon as Last Name, Aragón y Molina as Birth Surname, and Aurora Quezon as Display Name)
- Explained under Modern period.
Modern period
- Make Filipino as the default name. But if Filipinos were born using until the 1945 version of birth registration (usually until July 1956), you may opt to add Spanish name in Spanish. However, if the middle name(s) is/are given name(s) as explicitly indicated on their birth certificate, make English instead, unless they were born in other countries where English is not the official language, as the default name.
- The Philippine name should have the following:
- All given names should be put under First Name field.
- Per article 375 of the Civil Code of the Philippines, the maternal family name should be put under Middle Name field, unless born out of wedlock and not acknowledged by their biological father, in which the maternal family name will be put instead under Last Name field, Sergio Osmeña for example.
- The paternal family name should be put under Last Name field, except for most married Filipino women which is explained on the next bullet.
- Per same article, Filipino male ancestors and descendants who share the same given name from the second generation and so on will have to either append "Junior" (abbreviated as "Jr.") or II, and then III and so on as their suffix. For those from the first generation can optionally append "Senior" (abbreviated as "Sr.) as their suffix. (Example: Ferdinand as First Name, Romualdez as Middle Name, Marcos as Last Name and Birth Surname, Jr. as Suffix, and Bongbong Marcos as Display Name)
- Per article 370 of the same code, married Filipino women who are either alive or died on or after June 18, 1949 either change their name to the following:
- Their birth last name becomes their middle name and their husband's last name becomes their last name, Corazon Aquino for example.
- They retain their middle name or maternal family name, but their husband's last name will be appended on their birth last name, with or without hyphen, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for example.
- Filipino married women may still use their birth name on the display name. It is reflected on the Philippine Passport Act of 1996.
- Important Note: Due to Geni's technical limitations in which the Birth First Name and Birth Middle Name fields have not yet been implemented, the current solution for now is to retain the Middle Name field (unless born out of wedlock and not acknowledged by their biological father), put both the birth last name and husband's last name (with or without hyphen) on the Last Name field, and retain the Birth Surname field. (Example: Maria Corazon as First Name, Sumulong as Middle Name, Cojuangco Aquino as Last Name, Cojuangco as Birth Surname, and Corazon Aquino as Display Name)
- In case of previously married Filipino women who are annulled, they may opt to revert back to their birth name, Elizabeth Zimmerman for example.
DISCLAIMER: If you know the tribe, enter in the “ethnicity” field. If you know the language, enter it in the “language” field.
Philippines< Wikipedia >
The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines (Filipino: Republika ng Pilipinas),[d] is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. In the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of 7,641 islands, with a total area of 321,918 square kilometres,[16] which are broadly categorized in three main geographical divisions from north to south: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The Philippines is bounded by the South China Sea to the west, the Philippine Sea to the east, and the Celebes Sea to the south. It shares maritime borders with Taiwan to the north, Japan to the northeast, Palau to the east and southeast, Indonesia to the south, Malaysia to the southwest, Vietnam to the west, and China to the northwest. It is the world's twelfth-most-populous country, with diverse ethnicities and cultures. Manila is the country's capital, and its most populated city is Quezon City; both are within Metro Manila.
Ethnicity
The country has substantial ethnic diversity, due to foreign influence and the archipelago's division by water and topography.[265] According to the 2010 census, the Philippines' largest ethnic groups were Tagalog (24.4 percent), Visayans [excluding the Cebuano, Hiligaynon and Waray] (11.4 percent), Cebuano (9.9 percent), Ilocano (8.8 percent), Hiligaynon (8.4 percent), Bikol (6.8 percent), and Waray (four percent).[10][368] The country's indigenous peoples consisted of 110 enthnolinguistic groups, with a combined population of 14 to 17 million, in 2010;[369] they include the Igorot, Lumad, Mangyan, and the indigenous peoples of Palawan.[370]
Languages
Filipino and English are the country's official languages.[5] Filipino, a standardized version of Tagalog, is spoken primarily in Metro Manila.[398] Filipino and English are used in government, education, print, broadcast media, and business, often with a third local language;[399] code-switching between English and other local languages, notably Tagalog, is common.[400] The Philippine constitution provides for Spanish and Arabic on a voluntary, optional basis.[5] Spanish, a widely used lingua franca during the late nineteenth century, has declined greatly in use,[401][402] although Spanish loanwords are still present in Philippine languages.[403][404][405] Arabic is primarily taught in Mindanao Islamic schools.[406]
Naming customs < Wikipedia >
Filipinos have various naming customs. They most commonly blend the older Spanish system and Anglo-American conventions, where there is a distinction between the "Christian name" and the "surname". The construct containing several middle names is common to all systems, but the multiple "first" names and only one middle and last name are a result of the blending of American and Spanish naming customs.
Today, Filipinos usually abide by the Spanish system of using both paternal and maternal surnames, with the latter (maternal) used as the "middle name". The particle y is used only for legal purposes and is otherwise dropped. The middle name in its natural sense would have been the second name if the person had one, but it is never counted as an individual's given name.
Historical context and examples
In ancient times, the Tagalogs had a naming system that changed via family dynamics. A Tagalog man (especially a chief) would lose his name, take his first-born's name, and become known as "son's/daughter's father"; rather than his offspring adopting his surname like today. If he was baptized into Christianity, he would take a Spanish "Christian name" but retain his native name as surname. For example, Calao's father became Don Luis Amanicalao (Lord Luis, a chief of Tondo, Calao's Father). This also applied to mothers (e.g., Inanicao) etc. One also gained numerous "poetic" titles (i.e., "pamagat"; lit. "to have something to go before", today literally translated as "title", from where the prenom "Gat" is derived) from his renown/actions (e.g. valiance in battle) or other naming means (like a naming feast for those without offspring).[1]
Historical examples: Manila/Tagalog chiefs listed in the Tondo Conspiracy (1587–88) Phelipe Amarlangagui/Amarlangagui ('Felipe, Ama ni Langawi'), Luis Amanicalao (Luis, Ama ni Calao), and Omaghicon/Amaghikon (Ama ni Hikon).[2]
Another example is found in the only surviving baybayin writings; i.e., the Sto. Thomas Land Titles (1613-1625). In Document B (1625), Line 12,[a] a certain Amadaga was named. The contract stated that the owner of the land adjacent to the one sold in the contract was Maria Gada who had acquired it from Amadaga. Although no other context was given in the document, it is quite possible that Maria Gada is the daughter of "Ama ni Gada" (misspelled) and inherited the land from him as a legacy.[3]
Given names
Filipinos may have one or more official given names (as registered in their birth certificates and baptismal certificates) and various types of temporary or permanent nicknames. Filipinos commonly give themselves or each other nicknames and monikers. Some nicknames are carried for life, and others are used only with certain groups. A person can have multiple nicknames at different ages or among different groups of people.
Spanish
See also: Catálogo alfabético de apellidos < Wikipedia >
Almost all Filipinos had Spanish or Spanish-sounding surnames imposed on them for taxation purposes, but a number of them have indigenous Filipino surnames. On November 21, 1849, Governor General Narciso Clavería y Zaldúa issued a decree stating that Filipinos should adopt Spanish surnames to make census counting easier. Some Filipinos retained their native pre-colonial names, especially those who were exempted from the Clavería decree such as the descendants of rulers of the Maginoo or noble class. These surnames of the native nobility include Lacandola, Macapagal, Macabulos, and Tupas whom each descended from different Datus. They were allowed to keep the name to claim tax exemptions.
The Spanish surname category provides the most common surnames in the Philippines.[6] At the course of time, some Spanish surnames were altered (with some eventually diverged/displaced their original spelling), as resulted from illiteracy among the poor and farming class bearing such surnames, creating confusion in the civil registry and a sense of detachment from their better-off relatives. Except for the "ñ", Filipino surnames from Spanish are written without accents due to US-imported typewriters used in civil registry that lack special characters.[citation needed]
Filipino naming tradition < Wikipedia >
The Filipino naming tradition is derived from the Hispanic system but was influenced by the American (Anglo-Saxon) naming tradition when the Philippines became a United States colony in 1901. A child will customarily carry the mother's original/birth name as the middle name and carry the father's surname. When a woman marries, she keeps her original/birth surname and adds the husband's surname, but does not typically hyphenate it. So, when Maria Santos Aguon marries José Lujan Castro, her name becomes Maria Aguon Castro and their children will typically carry the middle name Aguon, and the surname Castro.[citation needed]
For Filipinos, the middle name is usually the maternal surname, which is the original/birth surname of a person's mother. The use of the maternal surname as middle name is from American influence, where Filipinos adopted English naming customs, when they once used Spanish naming customs, that used two surnames (paternal and maternal) joined with the particle y (or e before /i/), which remains in use but became restricted to very formal purposes, police records and legal proceedings. In the original Spanish naming system, the middle name corresponds to the paternal surname, not the maternal surname as used in the Philippines today. For Filipinos, this middle name (or the maternal surname) is usually being abbreviated in less formal communications to a middle initial. Thus, a person with the full name Juan Santos Macaraig, with Santos the middle name in the present order, may become Juan S. Macaraig with the middle name abbreviated, and Juan Macaraig y Santos in the Spanish system, such as those used in names on police records, especially those seen on name placards held by a convicted person on official mug shots. The Philippine system, using "given name-middle name-surname" order (or "Christian name-mother's surname-father's surname") coincidentally follows the Portuguese naming system that uses two surnames, the first being maternal and the second being paternal.
But, the maternal surname may not be the middle name at some cases. It may be a second given name, like what the term really means, as in Jose P. Laurel, where "P." (a middle initial) corresponds to Paciano.
In illegitimate children, the middle name is the original/birth surname of the father, and the middle name (maternal surname) of the mother as surname. But the surname becomes of the father's surname upon legal and administrative acknowledgment by his/her father. The child of a single father takes no middle name, even when the mother's identity is known.
To illustrate that, the daughter of an unmarried couple named Ana Cristina dela Cruz Manansala and Jose Maria Panganiban Lozada, named '"Maria Cristina'", will be named Maria Cristina Lozada Manansala (or Ma. Cristina L. Manansala), with Ana Cristina's surname, Manansala, as surname. But once Jose Maria wants to acknowledge her as his child legally and administratively, Maria Cristina will take the surname Lozada, but keep the maternal surname Manansala as middle name, thus, Maria Cristina Manansala Lozada (or Ma. Cristina M. Lozada). As the daughter of only Jose Maria, Maria Cristina will be rather called Maria Cristina Lozada or Ma. Cristina Lozada, even when the mother is known.
In married women, the middle name usually corresponds to the original/birth surname, but on professional society, women usually add the husband's surname after their original/birth name, keeping the maternal surname. A married woman may decline taking the husband's surname and keep her original/birth name as no Philippine law compels women to take her husband's surname. Thus, a woman named Maria Concepcion Perez Limchauco (or Ma. Concepcion P. Limchauco), once marrying Juan Pablo Sanchez Marasigan (or Juan Pablo S. Marasigan) may take the name Maria Concepcion Perez Limchauco-Marasigan (or Ma. Concepcion P. Limchauco-Marasigan), maintaining the maternal surname Perez, Maria Concepcion Limchauco Marasigan (or Ma. Concepcion L. Marasigan), taking the original/birth surname Limchauco as middle name and Marasigan as married surname, or keep her original/birth names, remaining Maria Concepcion Perez Limchauco.