Catálogo alfabético de apellidos

Common card · No. 314748

The Catálogo alfabético de apellidos (English: Alphabetical Catalogue of Surnames; Filipino: Alpabetikong Katalogo ng mga apelyido) is a book of surnames in the Philippines and other islands of Spanish East Indies published in the mid-19th century. That was in response to a Spanish colonial decree establishing the distribution of Spanish family names and local surnames among colonial subjects who did not have a prior surname. It is also the reason for Filipinos sharing some of the same surnames as many Spaniards and other Hispanic countries. The book was created after Spanish governor-general Narciso Clavería y Zaldúa issued a decree on November 21, 1849, to address the lack of a standard naming convention. Newly-Christianised Filipinos often chose the now-ubiquitous surnames of de los Santos, de la Cruz, del Rosario, and Bautista for religious reasons; others preferred names of well-known local rulers such as Lacandola. To complicate matters further, discrepancies like family members holding...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Narciso Claveria y Zaldua., Public domain