Spain may use alphabetic order to decide kids’ surnames
西班牙新姓名學：依字母序排列

A new law in Spain could lead to a boom in children whose main family names start with the letter ‘A’.

Until now, Spanish kids have carried both parents’ surnames — their fathers’ always in first place and their mothers’ in second. In everyday use, many people give only the first surname.

But legislation submitted to parliament would give mothers equal rights to fathers in deciding which parent’s surname goes first.

If they can’t agree, it will be alphabetic order that decides.

“Names like Abad or Alvarez have a promising future in Spain,” said the conservative daily ABC.

“For others like Zurbano or Zamora, survival will be more complicated.”

The leading center-left daily El Pais said the Spanish government simply wanted to extend the principle of equality to the symbolic social realm of family names.

The legislation will be examined by the Justice Commission of the parliament’s lower house until tomorrow for possible amendments. It could be two years before it comes into force.(afp)

西班牙最近的一個新法律提案，可能讓姓氏開頭字母有個「A」的嬰兒數量突然增加。

西班牙小孩的姓氏至今以雙親的姓拼湊而成─父親的姓總是在最前面，而母親的姓氏放在父親後面。而日常生活中，許多人只給姓氏中的第一個名字。

但是上呈國會的這條法律讓母親與父親享有平等的權力，亦即姓氏順序依照英文字母順序排列。

如果雙方無法達成共識，那麼就得以字母順序決定先後。

保守派的ABC日報報導，「如阿巴德（Abad）或阿爾瓦瑞滋（Alvarez）這種名字未來在西班牙肯定很受歡迎。」

「其他像祖爾巴諾（Zurbano）或薩摩拉（Zamora）這種名字，要生存下來可能就沒那麼容易。」

中間左傾的國家報報導說，西班牙政府不過想把均等的概念延伸到社會領域，就如姓氏排列這件事情上。

這個法案明日將由國會下議院司法委員會審查，討論法律修正案的可行性。到頒布成為正式法律尚有兩年的時間。

（法新社／翻譯：吳岱璟）