Spain – A Country of Garcias
May 26th, 2011
Seeing the surname Garcia on an ID is not unusual. In fact, according to the latest statistics published by the National Statistics Institute Garcia is the most common surname in Spain, followed by Gonzalez and Rodriguez. Plus, if this is preceded with a forename of Maria del Carmen or Antonio, this makes up the most frequently found names in this country.
Maria del Carmen and Maria are the two most common names for women in Spain. In fact, in the case of Maria del Carmen, 683,000 women have that name. The 20 top names on the list follow Spain’s Catholic tradition with Maria being part of nine of the names and four others being biblical names. As far as men’s names are concerned, the most common are Antonio, Jose and Manuel.
Having García as a surname is nothing special it would seem, as more than a million and half people have it as first name, another million and a half as a second surname and to top that off, just over 82,000 people have it as both names, according to data from the last census, dated January 2010.
There are fashions in many things, and in names too. In the 70s and 80s the most common baby names in Spain were David, for boys and Maria del Carmen and Laura, for girls. In the 90s Maria once again returned to popularity for the girls and Alexandro for boys, names that still remain among the most popular today.
Arab Population Growth
The increase in immigration, in particular the Muslim population, is also reflected in the most common names in Spain. In the case of the male population, names like Mohamed or Mohammed are found in the top 30 most common names. While for women, you would need to go to number 299 in the list to find Khadija.
The most common surnames among foreign residents in Spain remain mainly Latino: Rodriguez, Garcia, Gonzalez, Lopez, Sanchez and Perez, however names such as Chen and Singh are now beginning to appear among the top names on the list.
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