SPANISH CHRISTIAN NAMES.
The extraordinary devotion of the Catholics, especially in this country, to the Virgin Mary, and the notion, supported by the clergy, that as many Saints as have their names given to a child at baptism, are, in some degree, engaged to take it under their protection, occasion a national peculiarity not unworthy of remark. In the first place few have less than half a dozen names entered in the parish register, a list of which is given to the priest that he may read them out in the act of christening the child. It would be difficult indeed, under these circumstances, for most people to know exactly their own names, especially if, like myself, they have been favoured with eleven. The custom of the country, however, allows every individual to forget all but the first in the list. In our devotion to the Virgin, we have hitherto avoided the strange solecism of the French Monsieur Marie, though almost every Spaniard has Maria for a second name.
The titles given to the innumerable images of the Virgin Mary, which supply the usual names of our females, might occasion the most ludicrous puns or misnomers, if habit had not diverted the mind from their real meaning. No names are more common than Encarnacion, Incarnation—Concepcion, Conception—Visitacion, Visitation—Maravillas, Marvels—Regla, Rule—Dolores, Pains—Agustias, Anguishes—Soledad, Solitude—Natividad, Nativity, &c. Other titles of the Virgin afford, however, more agreeable associations. Such are Estrella, Star—Aurora—Amparo, Protection—Esperanza, Hope—Salud, Health—Pastora, Shepherdess—Rocio, Dew, &c. But words, as it is said of the chameleon, take the colour of the objects to which they are attached; and I have known Pains and Solitudes among our Andalusians, who, had they been more numerous, might have produced a revolution in the significations of the language.