ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1239
http://www.s-gabriel.org/1239
************************************

24 Sep 1998
From: Braddon Giles 

Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You wrote to us that you were interested in registering the name
<Santiago Ramiro de Santandres>, and were looking for suggestions to
ensure that it will be accurate for a late period (1450 - 1600)
Spanish/Portugese persona.  We are glad that you value accuracy, because
we actually don't try to figure out whether a name will pass name
submission, but whether it's appropriate for your specific period.  Here
is what we found.

While the Spanish and Portuguese languages developed from similar
sources, and have some shared features, by your period they were
separate and distinct. The information we have for you is for Spanish.

Initially, <Santiago>  or <de Santiago> was a locative byname (a surname
identifying the place where someone lived).  <Santiago> "Saint James"
was an important saint venerated throughout Spain; the center of the
cult was the famous pilgramage site <Santiago de Compostela> located in
north-eastern Spain.  We have found some examples of the
given name in the 1500s, including <Santiago de Aguirre> 1541 and
<Santiago de Acebes> 1543 [1,2].

We're not sure whether you intend <Ramiro> to be a second given name (a
middle name) or part of your surname.  Double given names or middle
names were very rare in Spanish in your period; we recommend strongly
that you not use a double given name.  In your period, if the word
<Ramiro> was not the first one in your name, it would have been
interpreted as a surname.  The surname <Ramiro> and closely-related
<Ramirez> were both originally patronymics that meant "son of Ramiro";
but by your period they could have been used as inherited surnames.  In
the 16th century, either would have been an inherited surname.

<Ramiro> is an unusual surname for your period, but we've found a few
examples, e.g. <Diego Ramiro> and his father <Gonzalo Ramiro> in 1535.
<Ramirez> was more common: <Cristoval Ramirez>, <Diego Ramirez de  
Guzman>, <Diego Ramirez de Villaescusa> and <Fernand Ramirez>, all in
the period 1477-1504 [2,3].

<de Santandres> is a good locative byname.  We've found the place name
<Santandres> used sometime before 1300.  By the sixteenth century, the
place name might have been written <San Andres>, making the byname <de
San Andres> another possibility [4].

To sum up, we feel that <Santiago Ramiro de Santandres> is a fine name,
although <Santiago Ramirez de San Andres> would be a version of the name
more typical of the sixteenth century.

I hope this letter has been useful.  Please to write us again if any
part of the letter has been unclear or if you have other questions.  I
was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Juliana de Luna,
Elsbeth Anne Roth, Pedro de Alcazar, Arval Benicoeur and Talan Gwynek.

For the Academy,

Giles Leabrook     24/09/98


--------------------------------------------------------------       

References.

[1] de Atienza, Julio, _Nobilario Espan~ol_ (Madrid: Agular SA de
Ediciones, 1954).

[2] Elsbeth Anne Roth, _16th-century Spanish Men's Names_ (WWW:
self-published, 1998).

  http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kvs/mnames.html

[3] Antonio de la Torre and E.A. de la Torre, _Cuentas de Gonzalo de
Baeza, Tesorero de Isabel la Catolica_ (Madrid: Biblioteca Reyes
Catolicos, 1956).

[4] Diez Melco/n, R. P. Gonzalo, _Apellidos Castellano-Leoneses: Siglos
IX-XIII, ambos inclusive_ (Universidad de Granada, 1957).