Mga Marka

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I have two officemates whose names are Lian and Lilian. Tricked and bewildered, I usually end up calling one of them with the other person’s name. So I told them, “Why not use your other names?” Lian’s complete first name is Anna Lian and I suggested that it’s better if we call her Anna, same with Lilian whose other name is Luz. Lian cringed at the idea, pleading that she’ll settle with the fact that we are confused by their names—period. I thought, “But what’s wrong with being called Anna?”

Lilian, or should we now call her Luz, is another story. Liking the idea, she told me how her former professor (Dr. Nilo Ocampo who happened to be my former professor in another subject) once required them to decipher the meanings of their complete names—first name, middle name, and surname. I summed up her name’s brief history and came up with this list:

  1. Lillian – from the flower lily
  2. Luz – means light in Spanish
  3. del Rosario – pertains to rosary, again, in Spanish
  4. Cruz – of course, the cross

Isn’t it amazing?

My mischievous persona was thrilled. How about me, how about me was my thought as I was googling for my middle name.

A long time ago when I was a ten-year old boy, I came upon a tattered book that belonged to my aunt. It was a book of names and their meanings! They say that a person’s name to that person’s ears is the sweetest and the most beautiful name of all. True! I zoomed to that page that bears my first name to discover that I have a Gaelic name, Neil, which means cloud, passionate, and champion. One website says it’s an appropriate name for a leader or a builder. O yes, I blushed and was on cloud nine on those moments of enlightenment and maybe until today every time I remember what my name means.

My surname, Dalanon, is known to me by heart. It’s rooted from the Visayan word dalan that means road.

Can you now picture the puzzle? If I translate these fragments of words into a sentence, I might say “I am a passionate builder who leads [my followers] down the road to…” To what?

So I asked Google about the etymology of Villegas, my middle name. It gave me this Wikipedia page in—you guessed it right—Spanish language! I took six units in elementary Spanish in college but, hey, that was a long time ago. Will someone please translate this for me?

El conde Diego Rodríguez Porcelos fundó Villadiego en alrededor del año 880 y Burgos en 884, cerrando las defensas por el oriente. Al mismo tiempo el conde Nuño Núñez asienta con firmeza la villa y el castillo de Castrojeriz. Al abrigo de esta seguridad se presentaron ante el conde Diego, en Villadiego, dos grupos de familias procedentes de las Asturias de Santillana, para asentarse, colonizar la tierra y sumarse a los ideales de la joven Castilla que a todos recibía y trataba por igual, liderados por dos personajes caracterizados: Egas y Mauronta. El Conde les asignó un sector, una legua más abajo de Villadiego, a ambas orillas del río Brullés, naciendo de esta forma dos villas: Villa Egas (en la banda oriental del río, actual barrio Villegas) y Villa Mauronta (en la ribera occidental, actual barrio Villamorón). Al poco tiempo se asentaron cuatro villas más, las cuales al despoblarse y desaparecer en el siglo XIV, dejaron a Villegas como su heredera (en el actual término Municipal homónimo). Dichas villas formaban parte del alfoz de Villadiego hasta cerca de 1066, pasando al alfoz de Hormaza hasta 1237, que fue cuando se la incluyó en la Merindad de Castrojeriz).

Forget it. I’m just joking. But one thing that I’m sure about now is that Villegas was coined after villa (which means village) and Egas, as stated above and if my understanding is correct, an eminent clan in a village in Burgos province in Spain. Eminent it was that its very name became the village’s name. I can forget about this clan. What mesmerized me is the fact there was once a village, a home! A home that will eventually be called Villegas, and will eventually become my grandpa’s surname.

Can I now put the remaining piece of the puzzle? I’ll do it mentally. What intrigues me now is this: How about you? Can you solve the mystery of your name?