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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 1 1 



tion from the community of males to a somewhat 

 greater extent than females. Revolutions and 

 military service, opportunities for work outside 

 of the community (especially in the larger cities, 

 northern Mexico, and in the United States), and 

 the financial, cultural, and sensual lures of the 

 large cities, have taken many men and boys fi"om 

 Quiroga; and a considerable number of these 

 never return to make a home in their birthplace. 

 The rise of new families is initiated by men or 

 families moving in from the outside — usually from 

 communities within northern Michoacdn. Often 

 this occurs when a Quiroga woman, or woman of a 

 family which owns houses or lands in the area, 

 marries an outsider, and the couple settles in 

 Quiroga to benefit from the woman's possessions. 

 Also, there has been a constant movement into 

 Quiroga from the surrounding ranchos and towns 

 that are or have been within the political and 

 economic orbit of Quiroga. This hinterland 

 includes all of the northern part of the basin of 

 Pdtzcuaro, from Tzintzuntzan around to San 

 Andres, and northward and eastward to include 

 some of the communities in the municipio of 

 Morelia. Whenever such families have numerous 

 male offspring there results, in two generations, 

 a marked increase in the number of persons carry- 

 ing the family names involved. 



COMPARISON WITH CHILEAN NAMES 



For lack of comparable data in Mexico, we will 

 contrast the more numerous families in Qunoga 

 with those in Chile. According to a study by 

 Thayer Ojeda (1917, 1919) of some 167,000 names 

 compiled from various lists of some 40 years ago, 

 there are many names in common, but the order 

 of importance differs greatly, and many high 

 ranking Chilean names are completely absent in 

 Quiroga. This result is expectable, since we are 

 comparing part of a municipio with a whole 

 country. Probably comparison with other parts 

 of Mexico would give quite different results. From 

 the first 10 of the Chilean list only Gonzdlez, 

 Garcia, and Rodriguez appear in the first 10 in 

 Quiroga. To these names can be added Herrera, 

 L(3pez, Guzmdn, Diaz, and Gutierrez, which are 

 in the top 25 places on both lists. There follows 

 a list of the top 40 names in Chile. The 8 marked 

 with an asterisk do not occur at all in Quiroga. 



1. Gonzdlez. 



2. Silva. 



3. Perez. 



4. Rojas. 



5. Diaz. 



6. Ramirez. 



7. Valenzuela.* 



8. Mufioz. 



9. Garcia. 



10. Rodriguez. 



11. Martinez. 



12. Fernandez. 



13. Vargas. 



14. L6pez. 



15. Herrera. 



16. Castro. 



17. Bravo.* 



18. Guzmdn. 



19. Molina. 



20. Le6n. 



21. Alvarez. 



22. G6mez. 



23. SAnchez. 



24. Viizquez. 



25. Gutierrez. 



26. Reyes. 



27. Soto. 



28. Ortiz. 



29. Contreras. 



30. Morales. 



31. Espinoza. 



32. Ahumada.* 



33. Escobar.* 



34. Niinez.* 



35. Carrasco.* 



36. Figueroa.* 



37. Jimfeez. 



38. Romero. 



39. Jara.* 



40. Olivares. 



TYPES OF SURNAMES 



Before we can consider the ethnic connotations 

 of family names in Quiroga we must consider 

 methods of formation and types of siu-names. The 

 oldest form of surname, apparently, is the true 

 patronymic which was formed in the Iberian 

 Peninsula by adding -az, -ez, -iz, oz, -uz, -s, -as, -es, 

 and -is to some form of the father's Christian or 

 baptismal name. In this maimer we have L6pez 

 (son of Lope), Sanchez (son of Sancho), Gonzdlez 

 (son of Gonzalo), etc. The above-listed termina- 

 tions originally had regional and dialectic signifi- 

 cance, but the Christian reconquest of the Penin- 

 sula from the Moslems, and considerable migration 

 from other parts of Iberia into southern Spain, 

 together with the lack of a standardized orthog- 

 raphy, make it extremely hazardous to assign 

 specific provincial origins to the names ^vith var- 

 ious endings. However, in general, the endings in 

 "s" instead of "z" come from western Iberia. 

 There are said to exist more than 200 of these 

 patronymics, of which some 40 are to be found in 

 Quiroga. Somewhat more than a quarter of the 

 inhabitants of Quii-oga have surnames of this 

 type. 



An ancient and patrician form was derived from 

 the estate of domains of a noble or landholder. 

 These estate names {apellido senorial y solariego) 

 were formed by following the baptismal name with 

 "de" (of) and the name of the possession, as in 



