[ht85]

I once tried to open a bank account in Spain, which could not be done because I did not have a second last name. Spanish babies receive the last names of both parents.

The employee was trying her best and I eventually suggested she could put my last name twice. She made a face for an instant then said she was not allowed to do that.

I later understood that the face was because having two identical last names suggests inbreeding or incest... I am sure there are plenty of jokes about that in Spanish culture. lol.

I never managed to open the account and in the end had to go to a different bank.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Having two identical last names is very common in Spain, for purely combinatorial/statistical reasons. No one bats an eye about that. It would only suggest inbreeding if they were extremely uncommon last names.

I bet she just made a face because the second surname is part of people's identity and has a meaning, it's not something people would fake. And it's also used when e.g. checking your ID to see that you are the legitimate owner of the account, so it probably wouldn't even work.

Of course it's totally reasonable that you suggested that in that case, what's unreasonable is the bank's system requirement of two last names, but to an average Spanish person it sounds odd to want to use a second surname that isn't real.

I know a person who has some certificates to the name of Firstname Lastname NULL :)

[ht85]

It says there are 6 people with my last name in Spain, guess you can call it uncommon :p

[serial_dev]

I don't think she made a face because of incest, two people can have the same last name without inbreeding, just think how many Smiths or Johnsons are in the US.

3.48% are called García in Spain [1], and there are regional differences, in some areas it could be higher, so statistically, there will be García García (in fact, in my 8 months living in Spain, I met one).

Only reason I can think of is that she thought of it as forging a document with fake data, and you so openly suggesting identity fraud, she made a face, but she then probably understood that you are a "naive" foreigner and that you were probably not aware that you just suggested giving a fake name for a bank.

Btw, I have only one first name and one last name, and I could open a bank account without issues in Spain.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_Spanish_surna...

[juped]

banks are always asking for your mother's maiden name, and you refused only in this one case where it actually made sense to give it?

[ht85]

No, names needed to match my ID document, which only has first name and last name.

[yladiz]

I’m assuming in this case you do have a middle name that could be your first second name, right?

[Al-Khwarizmi]

That isn't typically allowed. Spanish people also can have several given names, but they count as first names, not last names/surnames. A bank would typically check your data against a passport or ID and wouldn't allow you to put the middle name in the place of a last name.

And if for some reason you managed to do it, you would be called Mr. MiddleName in all communications.

As a curiosity, Spanish people often have the opposite problem - for example, in academia, if we sign papers in the "natural" way (FirstName FirstSurname SecondSurname) we'll be indexed as Name F. SecondSurname, which is quite jarring for us because we typically go by the first surname, not the second. So many (probably most) of us hyphenate (FirstName FirstSurname-SecondSurname) to avoid automated systems (or humans from other countries) to extract our surnames wrong.

[soco]

What is actually a "middle name"? I have two "first names" meaning I can use either one I like, and in official situations I write them both in the first name field with a space (which works fine as such, airlines will combine them no issues whatsoever). What is the real life usage of a middle name in whatever culture has the notion of a middle name?

[Ekaros]

It is an other fun cultural context. I have Firstname Middlename Lastname. This or Lastname Firstname Middlename appear on somethings like credit card, ID, passport and official legal documents. But in normal live like receiving normal letters and so on it is just Firstname Lastname or Lastname Firstname. Even the order is fluid with Lastname Firstname being more formal.

And then some people have First-Name firstnames where either part is also a name, but whole thing is one Firstname... So calling someone with just First is often wrong...

[soco]

Okay but is there any social situation where calling you by the middle name is the appropriate way? Except when you mom's angry like the other commenter suggested :) Is a patronymic a middle name, or a second (first, actually) last name?

[ambichook]

when your mum's angry at you and needs to make it known

[ht85]

No middle name, just first name last name.