QUIROGA: a MEXICAN MXHSriCIPIO — brajstd 



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Juan de Talavera (Thayer Ojeda, 1917, 1919).= In 

 time common people with no lands approximated 

 the seignorial names by taking as surnames the 

 names of the places where they were born or 

 where they had their homes. In this fashion a 

 certain Juan born in Talavera might be Juan 

 Talavera or Juan de Talavera also. The presence 

 of the "de" does not indicate noble ancestry neces- 

 sarily, but the absence usually denotes a plebian 

 origin. No family in Quiroga uses the "de" by 

 itself or in any combination. Formerly there was 

 the name "Ponce de Le6n." There are many of 

 these place-sm'names {nombres lugarenos) in Qui- 

 roga, such as Aguilar, Ai-riaga, Ayala, Heredia, 

 Le6n, Medina, Alendoza, Mejia, Miranda, Mordn, 

 Pantoja, Rocha, Toledo, Trujillo, Zamora, and 

 Zaragoza. Of the same general type are names 

 derived from such natural and cultural features as 

 caves, rocks, streams, hiUs, plants, castles, settle- 

 ments, forts, etc. Among such names in Quiroga 

 are: Arroyo, Barrera, Campos, Castafleda, Cas- 

 tillo, Castro, Corral, Cuevas, Estrada, Fuentes, 

 Fuerte, Fraga, Granados, Huerta, Mesa, Molina, 

 Morales, Olivares, Ortega, Pena, Pineda, Rios, 

 Rivera, Robles, Rosales, Sierra, Soto, Torres, 

 Tovar, Vega, Vargas, and Villa. The various 

 place-surnames are not very helpful in determin- 

 ing origins, since individuals with, for example, 

 Basque names such as Arriaga and Ayala may be 

 descendants of individuals who came over to New 

 Spain from Andalucia, and whose ancestors for 

 several hundreds of years had lived in New 

 Castille. Owing to local intermarriage in southern 

 and central Spain there may be very little Basque 

 left excepting the name. About all that can be 

 presumed is that the male ancestry ultimately was 

 from one or another of the Spanish provinces. A 

 third important group of surnames includes those 

 derived from nicknames pertaining to physical and 

 moral qualities, and names from professions, occu- 

 pations, or other comparable items. In this 

 heterogeneous group fall such names as Caballero, 

 Cortes, Farfdn, GaUardo, Guerrero, Herrera, Leal, 

 Mdrquez, Pulido, and Salmer6n. Also there might 

 be included objective names of uncertain original 

 application such as Barriga (belly), Calderdn 

 (cauldron). Corona (crown), Flores (flowers), Luna 

 (moon), etc. 



» In addition to the works by Thayer Ojeda, for discussion of Spanish 

 surnames, see Godoy Alcantara, 1871; RIos y RIos, 1871; and Gosnell, 1938. 



Of the various other types of surnames there is 

 one more which is important for the Quiroga area. 

 This is the type composed of baptismal names, 

 and of the full saint's name as in Santa Maria and 

 Santana. In general, old Christian famihes in 

 Spain did not have or take such names. They 

 were usually assumed by Jews and Moslems con- 

 verted to Christianity. Examples of such names 

 in Quiroga are Aparicio, Baltazar, Bernal, Casi- 

 miro, Cruz, Fabidn, Paz, Reyes, Roman, Santillan, 

 and Santoyo, all of which names are to be found 

 among the sLxteenth-century Spanish colonizers of 

 Mexico (Bermudez Plata 1940-46; Icaza, 1923; 

 O'Gorman, 1945). However, the same proc- 

 ess took place on the conversion of the Indians 

 that had occurred with the Jews and Moslems in 

 Spain. Hence, many of these Christian sur- 

 names may go back to pure Indians who assumed 

 them in the sixteenth century. We have further 

 assurance of this from an examination of the sur- 

 names in the neighboring Tarascan Indian towns 

 of Santa Fe, San Jerdnimo, and San Andres. In 

 these dependencies of Quiroga there must be at 

 least 60 Christian surnames represented, among 

 which the most common appear to be such as 

 Fabidn, Bautista, Dimas, Gabriel, Lucas, Caspar, 

 Alonzo, Baltazar, Mateo, Marcos, Trinidad, 

 Cruz, Angel, Antonio, Sebastian, Jerdnimo, San- 

 tos, Ignacio, Floreano, Salvador, Santana, Manuel, 

 Aparicio, Valentin, Reyes, Patricio, Luciano, 

 CorneUo, Jacinto, Dionicio, Sim6n, Santiago, 

 Maximiano, Pablo, Bartolo, Andres, Basilio, 

 Agustin, Dolores, Francisco, Ldzaro, Timoteo, 

 and Bruno. Of such names, in addition to the 11 

 mentioned earher, there are in Quiroga, Conrado, 

 Estela, Floriano, Magos, SLxtos, and Trinidad. In 

 the 1860's there also were Carlos, Amador, Gil, 

 Guido, Guadalupe, Jaimes, Ldzaro, Mateo, Mar- 

 cos, Pio, Plascencio, Quiiino, Ramdn, Santacruz, 

 and Ventura. An examination of the records 

 (Bermudez Plata, 1940-46; Icaza, 1923; O'Gor- 

 man, 1945) shows that there was a sprinkling 

 of many different Christian surnames among 

 the sLxteenth-century immigrants to Mexico, but 

 only Alonso, Bernal, Gil, and especially Martin, 

 were present in significant numbers. Probably 

 we will not be very wrong if we assume that all 

 Quiroga families with Christian surnames (ex- 

 cepting the Bernal) are descended in the male line 

 from pure Indians in the sixteenth century or 

 probably later. These 16 families comprise 99 



