Thoughts on Santiago

Thanks for the comments everyone

@SwedishEdith That's interesting about Saint Claire/Sinclair- particularly as it's used as a boy's name!

@Neurodiverse @LT2 - had to Google impractical jokers as hadn't seen before! I think it's probably something I can live with. I guess this is a risk of using names that aren't common in the UK - if people have only ever heard it in one context, they'll forever associate it with that. So we'd have to hope no one called Santiago ever becomes famous here for a really horrible or embarrassing reason...

@iloveorange yeah, it's interesting how the same names come in and out of style in different countries. Also I think when it's a name that doesn't exist in your own language, you're just really focused on the actual sound it makes and you don't have any of the connotations around associating with a certain type of person, so it's hard to judge how it will be received. My DP has suggested British names that I would never use as can't imagine anyone under 50 with them and I've done the same with one or two Spanish names...opinion seems a bit split on Santiago though, with several people saying they know Santiagos of all ages, including children

I quite like some of your suggestions too - you understand what we are looking for- a Spanish name that English people won't completely mispronounce ( or an English name that would be read correctly in Spain). So all J names - Jaime, James, Jorge, Joseph etc are completely out!

@elenacampana no, I never met a Spanish Tiago either, but DP tells me it's starting to be used as a baby name in Spain, so apparently there are some young ones (sometimes spelled Thiago, I think) I've been told a few times now though that it's definitely not used as a nn for Santiago, which seems odd to me as they are historically from the same name I believe and 'Tiago' is right there in the name Santiago, but apparently it just doesn't work like that.

I did want a name with more that one nn option, but I really like the nn Santi, so that's probably what I'd use for him
anyway

DP likes Tiago and also Diego, but I told him I think a lot of people here will automatically think of Diego Maradona, who was considered a bit of a villain here as a lot of people have super long memories when in comes to football!

I just also really love that DP has the personal connection to Santiago de Compostela, so it feels like a name with meaning for us.

@Benjispruce4 Yes, it literally means Saint James, but I don't think it's anything like naming a child 'Saint James', because it's so well-established as a name in the Spanish-speaking world, it's kind of taken on a life of its own. My Spanish/Galician partner, when asked to translate Saint James into Spanish, says 'San Jaime', Jaime being the more commonly-used modern version, I think. Although of course, the City and the cathedral are both named after and inextricably linked to Saint James. I think it's quite a difficult concept for English-speakers to get, and don't even know if I'm explaining it right myself! But long-story short, it's a normal name in Spain and Spanish people don't think 'oh, you're called Saint James?- how weird!' Also, Saint in Spanish is San/Santa/santo -not Santi. Santi is just a shortened version of the name. Still good to know what reaction it might get here though, thank you!

Hi @GreatStuff67 - thanks for the super helpful input and advice

So good to know about how the surname-thing works for you! Yes, my DP gets the same as yours, with things address to Mr SecondSurname, which of course isn't the one he uses mostly.

Can I ask, do your children have Spanish passports as well as British ones? I ask because my DP tells me that to be registered in Spain, they'd HAVE to have two surnames and I wondered how this would work- could it be hypenated in the UK and written without the hyphen on Spanish documents? Or would that cause issues because they wouldn't match EXACTLY? I'm already imagining a bureaucratic nightmare arising somehow!

Really happy to know that having Spanish names hasn't caused any problems for them, hopefully that bodes well for our little one!

I would like him to have a middle name too, but even my DP doesn't really understand the concept as it doesn't really exist in Spain, does it? You either have one first name, or two with a hyphen, so sort of the opposite of how British names tend to work!

@SwedishEdith My understanding is that Iago is a form of James and the name Santiago comes from 'Saint James' elided together. It started being used as a name and the name Tiago then in turn came from shortening the name Santiago, but was only used in Portugal rather than Spain and it seems it's lost it's association in peoples minds with the name Santiago. I kind of feel like you can make any part of a longer name into a nickname, but from what DP and other posters have said, it sounds like people in Spain tend not to do that with Santiago/Tiago and just view them as separate names, one of which isn't even Spanish! Complicated....