Why are so many Hispanic names hyphenated.

Why are so many hispanic last names hyphenated. This is also called a double surname. María Perez García de los Monteros So there are many combinations you can find but you should be able to know if one is a Hispanic Name or Last Name. A compound surname could look like this.

In Puerto Rico as in many Hispanic cultures the first surname comes from the fathers first surname and the second one comes from the mothers first surname. In the Western tradition of surnames there are several types of double surname or double-barrelled surnameIf the two names are joined with a hyphen it may also be called a hyphenated surnameThe word barrel probably refers to the barrel of a shotgun as in double-barreled shotgun. Thus my two last names were one of the most common things in the world until I got to graduate school.

Admittedly they are old established families. Why are so many Hispanic surnames hyphenated. So when Hispanic women marry they simply keep their names as they always are.

The Spanish equivalent of the hyphen you occasionally see in English last name eg Olivia Newton-John is the Spanish y and as in Jose Ortega. María Pérez García-Treviño b. The typical Spanish Latin Hispanic name consists of four parts.

First name second first name fathers last name and mothers last name. Following the Hispanic tradition of two surnames often presents many legal complications so many women avoid this by hyphenating their surname after their husbands surname. In Colombia for example Ernesto Escobar Vega uses two surnames Escobar Vega as his legal name with Escobar coming from his father and Vega coming from his mother.

In many cultures people once had only one name. In British tradition a double surname is heritable and mostly taken in order to preserve a family name. The two surnames names are ancestral with the fathers family name followed by the mothers family name.