They most commonly blend the older Spanish system and Anglo-American conventions, where there is a distinction between the "Christian name" and the "surname".
Emmanuel can become Eman, Manuel, Manolo, Manny, or Manoy, and Consolación can be shortened to Connie, Cons, Sol, or Chona.
For example: Some first names like Lodegrano or Lorimer may have been invented on the spot by the parents or be derived from some partially-remembered foreign term.
People in the Filipino community are often addressed by their military or police rank, professional titles or job descriptions, either with or without their names (e.g., Architect, Attorney, Engineer, Teacher etc.
People with the same name as their father are registered as Junior (abbreviated to Jr.) or numbered with Roman numerals (III, IV, V, etc.
Therefore, a family necessarily bestows a variety of unofficial nicknames to distinguish the various people with nearly identical official given names.
For instance, World Champion boxer and incumbent Senator Manny Pacquiao named his two daughters Queen Elizabeth and Princess.
Joseph Ejército Estrada, the 13th president of the Philippines, began as a movie actor and received his nickname Erap as an adult; it comes from Pare spelled backwards (from Spanish compadre, which means "fellow godparent").
[4] An old custom is to replace or insert Filipino phonemes into a Spanish or English name: Edwin becomes Aweng, Eduardo becomes Dwarding, Roberto becomes Berting, Ponciano becomes either Popoy, Onse, or Syano, and Ricardo becomes Karding.
[4] Many Filipino celebrities and high-status personalities, such as actors and politicians, are often more well known by their nicknames than their actual given names.
On November 21, 1849, Governor General Narciso Clavería y Zaldúa issued a decree stating that Filipinos should adopt Spanish surnames to make census counting easier.
Some Filipinos retained their native pre-colonial names, especially those who were exempted from the Clavería decree such as the descendants of rulers of the Maginoo or noble class.
Except for the "ñ", Filipino surnames from Spanish are written without accents due to US-imported typewriters used in civil registry that lack special characters.
A significant number of people were exempt from the decree, since they already had preexisting surnames adopted prior to the Catálogo.
Most of these preexisting indigenous surnames were originally names or titles of local native rulers (datu), nobility (maginoo), and other renowned personages.
), objects or natural phenomena (e.g. Bituin or Bituon, "star"; Bulalayao, "rainbow"; Tanglao, "torch"; Batongbakal, "iron ore"; Banaag, "radiance of the rising sun"; Olan, "rain", etc.
), or animals and plants (e.g. Kalaw, "hornbill"; Calapati, "pigeon"; Camantigue, "garden balsam"; Abucay, "Philippine cockatoo", etc.).
[6] Unlike their lowlander counterparts, Igorots living in the Cordillera Central in northern Luzon were not conquered by the Spaniards and preserved their naming customs from foreign influence.
At the beginning of the 20th century and the advent of the American occupation of the Philippines, the Igorots' naming customs slowly conformed with the national legal naming system used today, aided by the evangelization efforts of American Protestant missionaries.
Common single-syllable Chinese Filipino surnames are Tan (陳), Lim (林), Chua (蔡), Uy (黃) and Ong (王).