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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 1 1 



children after the parents, and a greater tendency 

 to name children after grandparents and after 

 uncles and aunts. However, often these apparent 

 trends represented merely the small range of 

 selection afforded by the most popular names, 

 such as Jos6, Maria, Jesiis, and the like. 



MALE BAPTISMAL NAMES 



To obtain the distribution and incidence of 

 baptismal names we used the 1940 census of 

 Quiroga and its ranches. There were listed 1,952 

 males who possessed 342 different names. Pos- 

 sibly the number of different names actually is 

 somewhat smaller since a number of variations 

 of a name may have been introduced by the 

 personal idiosyncrasy in spelling on the part of 

 the census taker or of the informants. Examples 

 are such names as Amado and Amadeo, Basilo 

 and Basilio, Deodoro and Diodoro, etc., although 

 in many of such cases the variant spellings have 

 become accepted as different names. Again, 

 there are variant forms that actually are derived 

 from different saints, although the names were 

 derived from a common ultimate soiu-ce. Ex- 

 amples of this type include such names as Apolinar 

 and Apolonio, Aurelio and Aureliano, Crescendo 

 and Crescenciano, and Maximo, Maximino, Max- 

 imiano, and Maximiliano. The most common 

 male given name is Jos6 (Joseph), which was 

 recorded 115 times. Actually, the incidence of 

 Jos6 is much greater, since 84 individuals used 

 Jos6 in combined names such as Jos4 Jesiis, Jos4 

 Maria, Jos6 Guadalupe, and the like. Since Jos6 

 is such a common name, it is frequently followed 

 by a second name wliich becomes the name most 

 commonly used for the sake of distinction. 

 Often, in such a connection, the Jos6 is abbre- 

 viated to "J.," and the name will appear as J. 

 Trinidad Sanchez, or J. Luis Torres, and the like. 

 Quite often the baptismal name Jos6 will be 

 dropped completely, and the original possession 

 of the name can be determined only by consulta- 

 tion of the civil and parish registers. The num- 

 ber of such cases is unknown to us. However, it 

 can be assumed that practically everyone who 

 uses such first names as Jesus, Maria, Guadalupe, 

 Encarnacidn, Carmen, Concepci6n, Cruz, Dolores, 

 Kefugio, Salud, Santos, Socorro, Soledad, Trdn- 

 sito, and Trinidad, was baptized with an initial 

 Jos6. It will be noted that this group of names is 

 composed of attributes of the Deity, events in the 



life of the Savior and of the Virgin Mary, and the 

 like. The second most used name is Jesus, 

 which appeared alone 106 times, and preceded by 

 Jos6 31 times. Presumably, however, all indi- 

 viduals with the name Jesiis were baptized Jos6 

 Jesiis. We understand that the Eoman Catholic 

 church in Mexico is trying to discourage the use 

 of Jesiis as a baptismal name. When the abbre4 

 viation "J. J." is encountered, as in J. J. Vald^s, 

 it invariably stands for Jos6 Jesiis, in just that 

 order. 



In the following tabulation are given the most 

 popular names in Quiroga as of 1940. The number 

 after each name is the incidence of that name in 

 Quiroga. Where a second figure also is given it 



Mah baptismal names 



1. J036 115 + 84 



2. Jesus 106 + 31 



3. Luis 77 + 6 



4. Diego 73 



5. Francisco 64 



6. Rafael 63 + 1 



7. Salvador 59 



8. Antonio 58 



9. Juan 51 



10. Pedro 49 



11. Manuel 47 



12. Ram(5n 34 



13. J. Jesus 31 



14. Miguel 31 



15. Leopoldo 25 



16. Trinidad 21 + 3 



17. Isidro 16 



18. Carlos 16 



19. Felipe 15 



20. Guadalupe... 15 + 9 



21. Santiago 15 



22. Alfonso 14 



23. Enrique 14 



24. Gregorio 14 



25. Joaquin 14 



26. Vicente 14 



27. Ismael 13 



28. Nicolds 13 



29. Daniel 12 



30. Andres 11 



31. Arturo 11 



32. Lorenzo 11 



33. Ricardo 11 



34. Agustfn 10 



35. Alfredo 10 



36. Angel 10 



37. J. Maria 10 



38. Leonardo 10 



39. Florentine... 9 



40. J. Guadalupe. 9 



41. Felix 8 



