patronymic forms in 14th & 15th century Toledo naming

[taf]

(Things have been slow of late, so . . . )

I have recently been looking at a couple of powerful Toledo families that if you just look at the senior male line, appear to have 'locked in' their patronymic as a surname at early dates. As it turns out, this is the case with neither family.

Briefly, Iberian names in this period consisted of three parts, a personal name, a patronymic form, and a toponymic or surname: Fernan Alvarez de Toledo; Pedro Gomez Barroso. However, this period represents an intermediate time when the patronymics no longer retained their original meaning, indicating the name of the bearer's father, but had not yet become an inherited part of the surname. Instead, for a span of about two centuries, they were used like part of the given name - if someone was named for a predecessor, they would often (but not always) be given the full name-patronymic combination of that namesake, thus Toledo grandee Diego Gomez named his son Pedro Suarez, after the boy's uncle, great-uncle, and some earlier ancestors (even though Diego Gomez himself was likely named for his maternal grandfather Diego Garcia, but received a true patronymic - there was little consistency though namesake naming was more common than not).

Two apparent examples of true patronymic surnames are the Garcia de Toledo and the Alvarez de Toledo. In the first a Juan Garcia who died in the late 13th century had a son Diego Garcia, the first of seven successive lords of that name, and as we also see a further Juan Garcia, a Maria Garcia and an Ines Garcia de Toledo, this name would seem to have become part of the surname, but a fuller survey of naming of children in each generation shows anything but:

1. Juan Garcia: Diego Garcia, Gonzalo Yuannes, Teresa Yuannes, Urraca Yuannes, Ponce
2. Diego Garcia I: Diego Garcia, Juana Diaz, Teresa Alfonso, Pedro, Ines
3. Diego Garcia II: Diego Garcia, Juan Garcia, Pedro Suarez, Teresa Vasquez, Maria Garcia, Ines
4. Diego Garcia III: Diego Garcia, Ines Garcia, Constanza
5. Diego Garcia IV: Diego Garcia, Pedro Suarez
6. Diego Garcia V: Diego Garcia, Diego Gomez, Mencia
7. Diego Garcia VI: Diego Garcia, Diego Lopez, Enrique Manuel, Fernan Alvarez, Constanze Manuel
8. Diego Garcia VII: Maria Manrique

Thus, the repeated use of Garcia de Toledo was not indicative of the patronymic locking in as part of the surname, which never happened. It just reflects the repeated use of the same Diego Garcia combination for the eldest son.

A family where it did lock in was the line that gave rise to the Dukes of Alba, where the surname passed down to modern times as Alvarez de Toledo. The family heads appear with the Alvarez patronymic form from the mid-13th century, yet again this was not really a case of locking in that early:

1. Alvar Yuannes: Garcia Alvarez, Juan Alvarez, Ines Alvarez (true patronymic use)
2. Juan Alvarez: Garcia Alvarez
3. Garcia Alvarez (II): Juan Alvarez, Garcia Alvarez, Fernan Alvarez (I), Gutierre Gomez, Teresa Garcia, Ines
4a. Garcia Alvarez (III): Fernan Alvarez (III)
5a. Fernan Alvarez (III): Garcia Alvarez (V), Juan Alvarez, Diego Lopez, Pedro Suarez
6a. Garcia Alvarez (V):Fernan Alvarez, Pedro Suarez

returning to the other branch:
4b. Fernan Alvarez (I): Garcia Alvarez (IV), Gutierre Gomez, Fernan Alvarez (II), Maria, Leonor
5b. Fernan Alvarez (II): Pedro Suarez, Garcia Alvarez (VI), Leonor, Maria

The son of Garcia Alvarez (IV), Fernan Alvarez (IV), was made Count of Alba, and his son Garcia Alvarez Duke of Alba - unfortunately the patronymic forms used by their siblings are unavailable to me, but it nonetheless is clear that it was not until at least when they were ennobled that Alvarez de Toledo 'locked in'. Even though the direct male line was Alvarez de Toledo for a full two centuries earlier, this again reflected the coincidence of the later noble line descending from the siblings that happened to have Alvarez as part of their namesake naming, just as we have seen with the Garcia de Toledo, only rendered a little more obscure by the use of multiple Alvarez combination-namesakes in this family, Garcia, Fernan and Juan.

So, the take-home is that even in families that appear to have 'locked in' patronymic forms in this period, it is not safe to assume that is the case, and patronymic forms should be viewed as a constituent of their given name, rather than either a true patronymic or part of a surname, unless it is clear that it has truly become part of a patronymic-surname combination given every family member.

taf

[taf]

Having previously discussed the somewhat confusing use of patronymic forms in late-medieval Toledo, how within a single set of siblings there could be a range of patronymic forms, I now want to take a look at the pattern from the other perspective - following the inheritance of individual name combinations.

1. Pedro Suarez. The earliest occurence of this name is borne as the Castilian alias of a Mozarab born with an Arabic-style name. An apparent great-grandson of his was the second of the name in Toledo, who lived in the 13th century, and from his son Gomez Perez descend in male and female lines, every Pedro Suarez found in Toledo records over the next couple of centuries, more than a dozen men in all. Here I follow the numbering of Molenat (children are not shown in birth order, which is often unknown anyhow):

Gomez Perez, m. Orabuona Gutierrez
.PEDRO SUAREZ (de Toledo) III m. Maria Ramirez de Guzman
..PEDRO SUAREZ de Guzman
...Fernan Perez de Guzman
....Pedro de Guzman *
.....PEDRO SUAREZ de Guzman
..Juan Ramirez de Guzman
...Leonor de Guzman m. PEDRO SUAREZ de Toledo VII (see below)
..Teresa Vazquez de Guzman m. Diego Lopez de Ayala
...Elvira de Ayala m. Fernan Alvarez de Toledo (see below)
.Fernan Perez (de Toledo)
..PEDRO SUAREZ (de Toledo) V
..Gomez Perez (de Toledo)
...Diego Gomez (de Toledo)
....PEDRO SUAREZ de Toledo VI
.....Teresa de Ayala m. Fernan Alvarez de Toledo (see below)
....Mencia Garcia de Ayala m. Diego Garcia de Toledo IV (see below)
..Constanza Fernandez (de Toledo) m. Diego Garcia II de Toledo
...PEDRO SUAREZ de Toledo IV
...Diego Garcia de Toledo III
....Diego Garcia de Toledo IV m. Mencia Garcia de Ayala (see above)
.....PEDRO SUAREZ de Toledo VII m. Leonor de Guzman (see above)
......Tello de Guzman
.......PEDRO SUAREZ de Guzman
.Maria Gomez (de Toledo) m. Tel Garcia de Meneses
..Mencia Tellez (de Menezes) m. Garcia Alvarez de Toledo
...Fernan Alvarez de Toledo
....Fernan Alvarez de Toledo m. Teresa de Ayala (see above)
.....PEDRO SUAREZ de Toledo VIII
...Garcia Alvarez de Toledo
....Fernan Alvarez de Toledo m. Elvira de Ayala (see above)
.....PEDRO SUAREZ de Toledo IX
.....Garcia Alvarez de Toledo
......PEDRO SUAREZ de Toledo X

(* this person named Pedro was probably named Pedro Suarez, but might have been Pedro Lopez, the name of his maternal great-uncle)

This establishes the pattern I represented in the previous post in this thread, that name/patronymic combinations would pass together, and thus can be indicative of inheritance. However, is some cases there was even more at play, as can be seen with the name Gutierre Gomez.

Gomez Perez (de Toledo) m. Orabuona Gutierrez
.GUTIERRE GOMEZ, archbishop of Toledo
.Fernan Gomez (de Toledo)
..Gutierre Fernandez (de Toledo)
..Gomez Perez (de Toledo)
...GUTIERRE GOMEZ, prior of San Juan, master of Alcantara
....Diego Gomez (de Toledo)
.....Pedro Suarez de Toledo
......GUTIERRE GOMEZ (illegitimate)
.Maria Gomez (de Toledo) m. Tel Garcia de Meneses
..Mencia Tellez (de Menezes) m. Garcia Alvarez de Toledo
...GUTIERRE GOMEZ, bishop of Palencia, cardinal
...Fernan Alvarez de Toledo
....GUTIERRE GOMEZ, archbishop of Toledo

Note that in these generations, not only did the name combination Gutierre Gomez pass together, but with the original bearer being an archbishop, in all but one case it seems to have been given to a son designated for the church. In particular, Gomez Perez (II) gave this name combination for a church-bound son, naming him for the father's uncle the archbishop, rather than for the father's brother, Gutierre Fernandez, a layman. It seems likely this was intentional rather than mere happenstance.

taf

[taf]

In laying out the first of these I made a couple of errors in formatting it, so to correct the record:

Gomez Perez, m. Orabuona Gutierrez

.Fernan Gomez (de Toledo)
..PEDRO SUAREZ (de Toledo) III m. Maria Ramirez de Guzman
...PEDRO SUAREZ de Guzman
....Fernan Perez de Guzman
.....Pedro de Guzman *
......PEDRO SUAREZ de Guzman
...Juan Ramirez de Guzman
....Leonor de Guzman m. PEDRO SUAREZ de Toledo VII (see below)
...Teresa Vazquez de Guzman m. Diego Lopez de Ayala
....Elvira de Ayala m. Fernan Alvarez de Toledo (see below)
..Gomez Perez (de Toledo)
...PEDRO SUAREZ (de Toledo) V

...Diego Gomez (de Toledo)
....PEDRO SUAREZ de Toledo VI
.....Teresa de Ayala m. Fernan Alvarez de Toledo (see below)
....Mencia Garcia de Ayala m. Diego Garcia de Toledo IV (see below)
..Constanza Fernandez (de Toledo) m. Diego Garcia II de Toledo
...PEDRO SUAREZ de Toledo IV
...Diego Garcia de Toledo III
....Diego Garcia de Toledo IV m. Mencia Garcia de Ayala (see above)
.....PEDRO SUAREZ de Toledo VII m. Leonor de Guzman (see above)
......Tello de Guzman
.......PEDRO SUAREZ de Guzman
.Maria Gomez (de Toledo) m. Tel Garcia de Meneses
..Mencia Tellez (de Menezes) m. Garcia Alvarez de Toledo
...Fernan Alvarez de Toledo
....Fernan Alvarez de Toledo m. Teresa de Ayala (see above)
.....PEDRO SUAREZ de Toledo VIII
...Garcia Alvarez de Toledo
....Fernan Alvarez de Toledo m. Elvira de Ayala (see above)
.....PEDRO SUAREZ de Toledo IX
.....Garcia Alvarez de Toledo
......PEDRO SUAREZ de Toledo X

taf