What's Your Village Handle?
When a postman first starts out delivering mail in the villages, they might not know exactly where everybody lives. They have a small map of each village, with the house numbers. They have to match the mail to each of those numbers. Sometimes, a letter might be mis-addressed, and the postman is told that So-and-so López Sánchez doesn't live here, though the number corresponds. Then, they have to go asking around on their deliveries if anyone knows where that person lives. If they happen to come upon a close relative of that person, they're in luck. Otherwise, almost no one will recognize the name. Because that person is known as So-and-so, the Bird.
I don't know the surnames of most of the neighbors. I do know the family knicknames; most of them, at least. My disadvantage is that I didn't grow up here, so some knicknames and faces escape me, and the surnames might belong to an Asturian village for all I know them. But everyone has a knick, either something they inherited, for an ancestor, or something they acquired through some action in their life or where they happen to live.
In our village we have the knicks of locations, such as Moradiño, Agro da Fonte, and Estivada. A village has a name, and within that village there might be up to forty different location names; sometimes the difference is a couple of meters one way or the other. We are in Saradal (which has about five different spellings, depending on who's writing), but our neighbor is in Moradiño, and the houses are not that far apart on the same road. Agro da Fonte and Estivada are practically across the road from each other.
We also have families with knicks of animals, specifically the cuckoo and the cricket. I have no idea why, though the cuckoo might come from a joker in a family that would call out like the bird, to fool bird hunters. I have no idea of the origin of the cricket, though. Others are named for an ancestor, such as John. There are quite a few of that clan in our village, and I don't know who that John might have been. My family's knick, Xendilos, apparently comes from a village near Muros, Xendil. Why we moved kilometers away at the beginning of the nineteenth century, or end of the eighteenth, is still a mystery. Another family has a rather rude knick that I feel quite uncomfortable repeating, even in translated English. The mind boggles trying to figure out how they got it.
I assume family knicknames appeared for much the same reason every Spaniard has two surnames; to distinguish people from one another. So many Manolos, so, which one? Out of eight, three have the same first surname but are not related. Rather than repeat the two surnames, just say, "Manolo of the Gate," or "Manolo of Maruja," or some such distinguishing mark. Everybody in the vicinity understands the allusion in the knick, and tribal identity is established.
Besides, it is interesting to try out theories to figure out the why of some knicks. It makes for an insight into local family history, and curious anecdotes. I now just have to try to find out the history behind the rude knick and the cricket. They might remain village mysteries, though.
I don't know the surnames of most of the neighbors. I do know the family knicknames; most of them, at least. My disadvantage is that I didn't grow up here, so some knicknames and faces escape me, and the surnames might belong to an Asturian village for all I know them. But everyone has a knick, either something they inherited, for an ancestor, or something they acquired through some action in their life or where they happen to live.
In our village we have the knicks of locations, such as Moradiño, Agro da Fonte, and Estivada. A village has a name, and within that village there might be up to forty different location names; sometimes the difference is a couple of meters one way or the other. We are in Saradal (which has about five different spellings, depending on who's writing), but our neighbor is in Moradiño, and the houses are not that far apart on the same road. Agro da Fonte and Estivada are practically across the road from each other.
We also have families with knicks of animals, specifically the cuckoo and the cricket. I have no idea why, though the cuckoo might come from a joker in a family that would call out like the bird, to fool bird hunters. I have no idea of the origin of the cricket, though. Others are named for an ancestor, such as John. There are quite a few of that clan in our village, and I don't know who that John might have been. My family's knick, Xendilos, apparently comes from a village near Muros, Xendil. Why we moved kilometers away at the beginning of the nineteenth century, or end of the eighteenth, is still a mystery. Another family has a rather rude knick that I feel quite uncomfortable repeating, even in translated English. The mind boggles trying to figure out how they got it.
I assume family knicknames appeared for much the same reason every Spaniard has two surnames; to distinguish people from one another. So many Manolos, so, which one? Out of eight, three have the same first surname but are not related. Rather than repeat the two surnames, just say, "Manolo of the Gate," or "Manolo of Maruja," or some such distinguishing mark. Everybody in the vicinity understands the allusion in the knick, and tribal identity is established.
Besides, it is interesting to try out theories to figure out the why of some knicks. It makes for an insight into local family history, and curious anecdotes. I now just have to try to find out the history behind the rude knick and the cricket. They might remain village mysteries, though.
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