The Seventeenth Names in the Marginal Classes

THE SEVENTEENTH NAMES IN THE MARGINAL CLASSES Illegitimate children, foundlings and slaves are more conditioned when it comes to being forced into their names. In this way, in the illegitimate ones who are presented to us as having an unknown father, which are the majority, mothers will feel conditioned, both to choose a godfather and to the name of their child, as their conduct is rejected by the society that surrounds them and therefore on numerous occasions they were forced to abandon their children or go to other parishes to have baptism administered to them. The foundlings will depend on having one name or another according to the place where they were abandoned, on who finds them, if an emergency baptism is appropriate or if they already had a certificate indicating that they have a name, but in any case the parish priests were the ones who usually chose their name. Slaves are named and godfathers are assigned to their owners by their owners. During the seventeenth century, 149 illegitimate children (76 boys and 73 girls) were baptized in Agüimes who used a total of 44 different names (22 for each sex), the most used in children: John on 29 occasions (38.15%) and Francisco, the advocate of the poor, (15.79%) and following at a great distance, José, Salvador and Sebastián (four times) and Cristobal (three). Names that alone give us the idea of seeking in these saints a protection and spiritual kinship. And so it was, since 40.79% of the illegitimate children of Agüimes were assigned the name of the saint closest to the day of their baptism or birth; 6.58% received the name of the godfather and one of them, named Juan, obtained the name of his father, since his mother, María del Pino, said that he was the son of Juan González whom she had asked for as a husband and was in the Royal Prison.22 Among girls, the most used name was Maria, on 29 occasions (39.73%), followed by Catherine (eight times), Isabel and Sebastiana (four) and Ana (three). The influence of the saint on illegitimate girls rises to 49.31% and 6.85% bear the same name as their mothers, giving the curious circumstance that no godfather lent them his name and only one godmother did so, and rather it could have been by coincidence because the name was Maria. Slaves, rather than the names of their owners, tend to adopt their surnames and, in general, they are usually assigned a badge, which in the form of a surname, relates them to their masters, refers to some physical characteristic or mentions their place of origin or ethnicity.23 In Agüimes, during the seventeenth century, 103 slaves were baptized. The 49 male slaves used 24 different names, the most common being. John repeated it ten times (20.41%), followed by Francis (five times), Sebastian (four), Dominic and Michael (three). The influence of the saint on slaves is lower than on illegitimate slaves, accounting for 36.73% of the total. The sponsors lent their name in 8.16% of the cases. Two owners lent the name to their slaves, the Licentiate Juan Baptista Espino Peloz and the Captain Francisco Sánchez Romero, and on one occasion, it seems that an adult slave, 30 years old, chose his own name, because he asked to be baptized because he was in danger, he was named Gaspar, and he had to be healed since later he went to the church to revalidate the baptism.24 There were 54 baptized slaves and 26 different names were distributed, the most repeated being Mary, on 16 occasions (29.63%), followed by Catherine (on five occasions), and Anne and Elizabeth on four occasions. The influence of the saint on female slaves is high, 48.15%. As the mother was called 11.11%, and only one owner, the ensign Juan Sánchez, lent the name to the daughter of one of his slaves, who curiously was also named Juana. The foundlings of Agüimes were few, only eight. There were five males, who were given different names and on four occasions they coincide with the saint's day, highlighting here the name of Esteban de San Sebastián that was imposed on a child found in El Llano de Sardina, in a wheat flock.25 There were three abandoned girls, all of them with the name of Mary, although one, Maria Candelaria, already bore her name, as can be seen from the document she carried.26 Surely the most appropriate name for these abandoned girls was Mary, since they are placed under the protection of the Virgin in the hope that just as she protected her Son, born in a manger in Bethlehem, she would protect these children abandoned by their parents.