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Strange surnames if translated

  Tags: Names | Translation
 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages Post Reply
31 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4 
Duke100782
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 Message 25 of 31
29 September 2013 at 6:11am | IP Logged 
When some Spanish friars were assigning surnames to the Filipino natives during the Spanish Colonial Era
in the Philippines, apparently they haphazardly used the words in their Spanish-Tagalog dictionary. Some
Filipinos ended up having surnames like "kambing" or goat, or "utot" or fart. But by far the most memorable
surname I ever encountered during my previous work in the passport division of our foreign ministry was
that of a lady with the surname "titinggalit" meaning "angry penis" or a penis with an erection.
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liddytime
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 Message 26 of 31
30 September 2013 at 7:05am | IP Logged 
I went to junior-high with a guy named, no joke, Phuc Yu. You can imagine how much fun we had with that one. For
obvious reasons, he insisted we call him "Kevin".
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morinkhuur
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 Message 27 of 31
30 September 2013 at 11:46am | IP Logged 
One Spanish surname that I've always found strange is "Matamoros" ("kills-moors"). I understand that killing moors
might have been considered praiseworthy in medieval Spain, but it seems odd that people would still use that name
today.

In German we have the surname "Bauernfeind" ("farmer's enemy") and my father used to live in a house with a man
called Bauernfeind and another one called "Bäuerle" ("little farmer"). Not surprisingly, the two didn't get along very
well.

Other strange German surnames include "Pickel" (pimple/zit), "Fliege" (either fly (the insect) or bowtie), "Ziege"
(goat) or "Biermann" (beer-man)
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nicozerpa
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 Message 28 of 31
30 September 2013 at 12:34pm | IP Logged 
morinkhuur wrote:
One Spanish surname that I've always found strange is "Matamoros" ("kills-moors"). I understand that killing moors might have been considered praiseworthy in medieval Spain, but it seems odd that people would still use that name today.


There are few people who know what a "moro" is, I think. In fact, I've heard a lot of people saying "No hay MUROS en la costa", which is wrong, instead of "No hay MOROS en la costa".

Also, this surname is so common that most people simply don't pay attention the meaning. I was one of them until I read your message :P
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tommus
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 Message 29 of 31
30 September 2013 at 3:16pm | IP Logged 
I have always liked the Dutch surname Van Den Berg (from the [Dutch?] mountains).

When Louis Napoleon was King of the Netherlands, he reformed lots of things including surnames. The 'van' in surnames such as Van Den Berg was used to create surnames, often meaning 'from some town or area'. The surname Zondervan (without a van, or effectively without a surname) is quite common today, supposedly a mild protest against Louis Napoleon's requirement for surnames.

Here is an interesting article on Dutch surnames:

What's in a Name?

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vonPeterhof
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 Message 30 of 31
30 September 2013 at 5:55pm | IP Logged 
morinkhuur wrote:
One Spanish surname that I've always found strange is "Matamoros" ("kills-moors"). I understand that killing moors
might have been considered praiseworthy in medieval Spain, but it seems odd that people would still use that name
today.
This reminds me of another strange surname: there was a guy in my year at university, whose family name is Жидоморов (Zhidomorov). At one point "Zhid" used to be the default Russian word for "Jew" (I believe that is still the case with its cognates in most other Slavic languages), but nowadays it's an ethnic slur about as offensive as the English "kike" (and kind of similar in its etymology and gradual shift in meaning to another English slur, "yid"). "Mor" is a noun derived from the verb морить, which means something like "to kill" or "drive to death", usually implying an indirect method, like starving someone to death, working them to death or poisoning them. The noun usually refers to an act of such killing (e.g. Holodomor in the closely related Ukrainian), but in a compound word could theoretically refer to the performer of the action. In other words, the guy's name basically means something like "Kike-starver's" or "Jew-exterminator's".

Unlike Matamoros, Zhidomorov is far from a common family name in Russia (in fact I had never heard of such a name before coming across that guy). Sure, for much of the history of the Russian Empire the Russian Jews were about as popular with their Christian neighbours as the moors were in the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula in the 15th century, but the Russian/Soviet state never really fought a "Reconquista" against them, so there wasn't a good reason to display one's anti-Semitism that proudly. The guy himself seemed like an alright fellow, but we were never on close enough terms for me to enquire how an ancestor of his ended up getting nicknamed Mr. Holocaust.
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tarvos
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 Message 31 of 31
30 September 2013 at 6:02pm | IP Logged 
tommus wrote:
I have always liked the Dutch surname Van Den Berg (from the [Dutch?]
mountains).

When Louis Napoleon was King of the Netherlands, he reformed lots of things including
surnames. The 'van' in surnames such as Van Den Berg was used to create surnames, often
meaning 'from some town or area'. The surname Zondervan (without a van, or effectively
without a surname) is quite common today, supposedly a mild protest against Louis
Napoleon's requirement for surnames.

Here is an interesting article on Dutch surnames:

What's in
a Name?


Never heard of anyone called Zondervan. Naaktgeboren, on the other hand...


1 person has voted this message useful



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