[2] His parents were Eulalia Rodríguez Hercelles and José María Eguren y Cáceda,[3] who had him baptized on the same day of his birth in the San Sebastián parish.

As a kid and teenager, he would spend much of his time out in the fields, such as the ranches of Chuquitanta and Pro, which his father managed,[3] and where his family fled to in order to escape the wreckage caused by the War of the Pacific, and above all, the Occupation of Lima.

[3] In his youth, Eguren belatedly began to attend school, starting his studies in 1884 at the age of ten in the Colegio de la Inmaculada run by Jesuits, and then in the Scientific Institute of Lima.

Barranco was a serene seaside town close to Lima, and Eguren resided there in peace and tranquility for more than thirty years, where his friends and apprentices such as fellow poets Martín Adán and Emilio Adolfo Westphalen would come to visit.

[5] He also read children's literature (Brothers Grimm, Andersen), and works from the masters of Preraphaelism and English Aestheticism (Ruskin, Rossetti, Wilde).