How do I spell this sculptor’s name?

[Bert45]

We were talking about the unusual sculpture of the Crucifixion in the church of Furelos:

Fwiw, the most likely reason why this sculpture is not often mentioned in guidebooks: It is a modern work of religious art. It was placed in this parish church in 1953 and was a gift from the sculptor Manuel Cagide, a native of Furelos/Melide.

I had 90 results with <"Manuel Cagide" escultor> (including one from melideturismo.com) and 1600 with <"Manuel Cajide" escultor> (including one from santiagoturismo.com). This wouldn't matter to anyone with no degree of OCD, but ... Is this the difference between Spanish and Galician? But surely his name, Cagide or Cajide, must be on his birth certificate and that should be unchanged, whatever language it occurs in. How can I find out which spelling is really correct?

 

[Tincatinker]

@Bert45 ain’t life cute. The name on that birth certificate will be spelled in Castilian Spanish no matter how he or his parents might have spelt it. Mine says Barry John, never been called that or much like it in my entire.
Now if you are looking for a “true” name you’re better exploring Earthsea than this poor benighted planet

 

[MinaKamina]

We were talking about the unusual sculpture of the Crucifixion in the church of Furelos:

I had 90 results with <"Manuel Cagide" escultor> (including one from melideturismo.com) and 1600 with <"Manuel Cajide" escultor> (including one from santiagoturismo.com). This wouldn't matter to anyone with no degree of OCD, but ... Is this the difference between Spanish and Galician? But surely his name, Cagide or Cajide, must be on his birth certificate and that should be unchanged, whatever language it occurs in. How can I find out which spelling is really correct?

If these matters keep you awake, you'll be quite busy.

To put your mind at rest, I suggest that you study the development of the various languages on the Spanish penninsula.
I once did and though I do not remember the finer details at this moment and neither do I feel inclined to look them up, I can tell you this:

Cajide is the version of the name in Castellano, and Cagide is Galego / Galaico-Portugués.
Should the name exist in the South, or if the speaker originates from there, then it might be Cahide in Andalúz.

The development of the G, F, H, X, J from Latín Vulgar to the current Spanish languages is interesting, and detailed cientific publications are available.

Rule of thumb if you need to write about Manuel C.: choose one version of the name and stick to it.

 

[dick bird]

There are a few extant examples of Shakespeare’s signature. None of them is spelt the same way as the others.

 

[Bert45]

There are a few extant examples of Shakespeare’s signature. None of them is spelt the same way as the others.

That is true, but it was in the 16th-17th century when things were different. If Cagide was born in Galicia (as he was), his parents would presumably spell their name and his name that way. I don't see why his name can be spelled Cajide nowadays just because a Castillano writes it. But I suppose in Franco's time, local spellings were banned and castillian spellings were enforced.

 

[Kathar1na]

How can I find out which spelling is really correct?

You will have to go to Melide and see whether you can consult the registro to see the entry for the person’s birth and, assuming that he died in Santiago where he apparently had his business, you need to do the same in Santiago to consult the entry for his death. That is the only way to make sure that the spelling of his name did not change during his lifetime.

You may also want to read up on Galician legislation about the spelling of surnames during the last few decades to see whether there is something unusual that one wouldn’t expect when only familiar with the law about surnames in a few other countries or regions without official administrative multilingualism.

That’s the only way I can see to make sure and to have 100% certainty when one cannot live with ambiguity and unknowns, especially of the linguistic sort. But even then there will be journalists who write news articles and employees who maintain websites and who make spelling mistakes and get names wrong, and authors of guidebooks and bloggers who merely copy-paste such mistakes, and such errors multiply on the internet and one can only write to them and inform them but they may not make amendments let alone amends.

It’s a tough new internet world we live in.

 

[Pelegrin]

If these matters keep you awake, you'll be quite busy.

To put your mind at rest, I suggest that you study the development of the various languages on the Spanish penninsula.
I once did and though I do not remember the finer details at this moment and neither do I feel inclined to look them up, I can tell you this:

Cajide is the version of the name in Castellano, and Cagide is Galego / Galaico-Portugués.
Should the name exist in the South, or if the speaker originates from there, then it might be Cahide in Andalúz.

The development of the G, F, H, X, J from Latín Vulgar to the current Spanish languages is interesting, and detailed cientific publications are available.

Rule of thumb if you need to write about Manuel C.: choose one version of the name and stick to it.

Galician would be Caxide. Nevertheless there are very few names in Galicia with the "x" included. Normal is Rajoy, Feijóo.etc. The "castellanización" of names was previous to Franco. Maybe the public servants sent by the Reyes Católicos. This is not the only case "Fernández" and "López" should be "Fernandes" , "Lopes".

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

But I suppose in Franco's time, local spellings were banned and castillian spellings were enforced.

I walked with a Basque pilgrim who told me his name was changed by his father when he was young. As soon as it was possible after Franco's death the name Ignacio was out and Iñaki, a newly created Basque version of Ignacio, was in.

 

[Kathar1na]

Galician would be Caxide. Nevertheless there are very few names in Galicia with the "x" included. Normal is Rajoy, Feijóo.etc. The "castellanización" of names was previous to Franco. Maybe the public servants sent by the Reyes Católicos. This is not the only case "Fernández" and "López" should be "Fernandes" , "Lopes".

As so often on the forum, any question can actually open up interesting avenues.

I see that there is a website that has a database about the frequency of surnames or family names in Galicia ('apelidos' in Galician) and there are currently several hundred people named Cagide and several hundred people named Cajide registered in Galicia - see https://ilg.usc.es/cag/. As chance would have it, there is an identical number of persons named Cagide and Cajide (as their first or their second surname) in the Melide area, namely 32, while there are many more Cajides registered in the Santiago area, namely 38 versus 0.

So while this info will not help with @Bert45's quest about the correct spelling of one person's surname, I have now learnt that there is some kind of movement perhaps to adapt the orthography of family names to the spelling rules of the Galician language; at least there are recommendations in this sense. I manage to read and understand quite a bit of Spanish these days but Galician is way beyond my capabilities. But I had a look at one video about Os apelidos e a Real Academia Galega and at a note published by the Real Academia Galega about Os apelidos en galego - Orientacións para a súa normalización.

Would it be correct to say that the Galician language, similar perhaps to Spanish, Italian or German, has spelling rules so that, in general at least, personal names or place names are written as they sound, unlike English for example? And that the influence of the majority language (ie Spanish) has lead to a castellanisation over the centuries that was not imposed by a central authority but rather happened over hundreds of years?

 

[Kathar1na]

the Galician language, similar perhaps to Spanish, Italian or German, has spelling rules so that, in general at least, personal names or place names are written as they sound, unlike English for example?

I thought that there must be a proper term for it but I was too lazy to look it up. It is phonemic orthography.

 

[Pelegrin]

Would it be correct to say that the Galician language, similar perhaps to Spanish, Italian or German, has spelling rules so that, in general at least, personal names or place names are written as they sound, unlike English for example? And that the influence of the majority language (ie Spanish) has lead to a castellanisation over the centuries that was not imposed by a central authority but rather happened over hundreds of years?

Yes maybe, also it is possible that the Church in Galicia had something to do with it in baptism and marriage documents.
The original Galician spelling remained in the house name. In the rural, every house has a different name: Casa do Requeixo, Casa do Leiteiro, Casa de Fernandes, Casa de Gomes, etc.

 

[MariaSP]

It's going to be very difficult to know for sure what the right spelling is, unless you get hold of the 'registro', as @Kathar1na says. Both spellings, Cagide and Cajide are Spanish. Galician would be Caxide. GI and JI sound exactly the same in Spanish (as well as GE/JE and B/V) so it's quite common to find the same surname with 2 alternative spellings: Rivera/Ribera, Jiménez/Giménez.

In the past, whether you got one spelling or the other depended greatly on the registrar (I'm talking about times when most people were either illiterate or had very limited education. People went to register a newborn, the registrar wrote the name down using whatever spelling they thought was right and that was it. In most cases, only one spelling was possible, but in cases involving GE/JE, GI/JI, B/V or even H/no H... anything could have happened. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find people who belonged to the same family and had their surname spelled differently, like Cagide and Cajide.

On the topic of castellanisation, this had occurred in Galicia already way before Franco's times, from the 15th to the 18th centuries. This period is known as 'Séculos Escuros' (dark centuries). During this time, Spanish was imposed and it replaced Galician as the official language; Castilian nobility replaced the replaced the Galician one. In short, Galician became marginalised and Castilian became the prestige language. Many surnames and names of towns were modified to make them sound more Castilian during that period.

Then in the 19th century, there were a number of writers and intellectuals who were trying to revitalise the Galician language. They were doing well, but then Franco came and undid a lot of their good work.

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

Off topic but dealing with registered names.

A while back I searched a website that was a copy of early Massachusetts vital records (births, marriages and deaths recorded by town clerks). An early 1700s marriage registration by ancestors was missed so I had no record of Rebecca's maiden name and thus no birth record could be found. I used some software magic and searched for the name Rebecca, variant spellings and mispellings over 150 years in four counties. I found a bit over 90 various spellings.

I forget how many actual women I found with that name but, with some more work, I'm 95% certain I've found great-grandma's birth record.

 

[Kathar1na]

Thank you in particular to @Pelegrin and @MariaSP for their comments based on their first hand knowledge of the Galician language, and of customs, traditions and history of Galicia.

Looking back and with some distance in time to when I walked, I see now just how much I enjoyed learning about "Land und Leute", as this German alliteration goes, about "country and people" in France and Spain in particular, about culture, history, language and thinking past and present, and how much of it we share and what is different. This forum provides a continuation of this, which I appreciate very much. Google and the Internet are great resources when you get curious about something but they are not the only good source of knowledge and information. People are, too, and can even be better.

PS: I did find a bit more about Manuel Cagide from Furelos who went to Santiago at the age of 15 to learn the trade of carpenter and wood carver and also about the iconography, and I am keen to share it of course ...

 

[Pelegrin]

Thank you in particular to @Pelegrin and @MariaSP for their comments based on their first hand knowledge of the Galician language, and of customs, traditions and history of Galicia.

Looking back and with some distance in time to when I walked, I see now just how much I enjoyed learning about "Land und Leute", as this German alliteration goes, about "country and people" in France and Spain in particular, about culture, history, language and thinking past and present, and how much of it we share and what is different. This forum provides a continuation of this, which I appreciate very much. Google and the Internet are great resources when you get curious about something but they are not the only good source of knowledge and information. People are, too, and can even be better.

PS: I did find a bit more about Manuel Cagide from Furelos who went to Santiago at the age of 15 to learn the trade of carpenter and wood carver and also about the iconography, and I am keen to share it of course ...

Thank you for your words.
If you google "Fernandes" you'll find that is a Portugese surname and I didn' t find anything related to Galicia, but my mother's house name is "casa de Fernandes" (despite her surname was Fernández). There is another house called "Casa de Gomes" (Castilian Gómez).

 

[Bradypus]

Mine says Barry John, never been called that or much like it in my entire.

Your parents were rugby fans? I now live in the village where the other one was born and first played the game. A local hero.