Philippine name

In the Philippines, Filipinos follow the conventional American form: Given name-Middle name-Family name. However, given that the Spanish system of naming was first introduced, most Filipinos still follow the older system to some degree. For the most part, most Filipinos do not have middle names in the North American sense but, rather, adopted the dual first name-last name Spanish system. An example would be John Paul Reyes y Mercado becoming John Paul Mercado Reyes. The "y" is dropped and the father's last name moved to the appropriate part of the full name. The mother's last name is then used as a middle name. It is surmised that this was done to preserve the mother's maiden name. It must be remembered though that the middle name in its natural sense would have been the second name if the person had one. John Paul would simply become John Paul Reyes or John Reyes if he did not have a second name to begin with. The construct of having several names in the middle name convention is common to all systems however.

Almost all Filipinos have Spanish or Spanish-sounding surnames, imposed on them for taxing reasons (See: Alphabetical Catalog of Surnames) and a number of them have indigenous Filipino surnames. The newer generation of Filipinos, for the most part, now have English Christian first names, but some still have Spanish or indigenous Filipino names. Most of the newer generation have English Christian names because most Filipinos never speak Spanish. Derivatives are also common but these have no formal indigenous sources. For example, a man named Rafael (Spanish name) would be given a Filipino nickname of Paeng, coming from a local rendering of the last two syllables of Rafael.

Many modern-day Chinese Filipinos have traditional last names with one syllable like Lim, Tan, and Sy. However, early Chinese Filipino families took on the complete name of their patriarch, thus their names had three syllables. These were adopted into the mainstream Filipino surnames and don't exist anywhere else in the world. Their names were transcribed using Spanish orthography in effect during the 19th century.

Of particular interest is the convention of Chinese surnames ending in -co or -ko. This is an honorific in the Chinese language retained in the surname. However, it must be remembered that "co" by itself is also a valid surname. In general, if it is at the end it is an honorific. An example of this is Cojuangco. Their patriarch was Co Chi Kuan, who was addressed respectfully as Co Kuan Co (one given name dropped). Co Kuan Co eventually became Cojuangco to better adapt to the social norms dictated in the Spanish era.

The use of Arabic names is prominent among the Filipino Muslims. They are Islamic influence from Arabs, Persians, Malays, Indonesians, and Indian Muslims. Both Arabs and Spaniards gave names in common: Fatima, Omar, and Soraya. This is because these names are common in Spain by Arab influence.

The Spanish surname category provides the most common surnames in the Philippines. These include García, (de la) Cruz, (de los) Reyes, (de los) Santos, González/Gonzales, andLópez.^[1]

read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_name