I hope that makes sense and isn’t offensive or anything, I’m genuinely curious because I’ve tried googling it and haven’t found a lot. I’ve met a couple people recently where they have one or two first names and will have an additional either first or middle name(?) such as Salvacion, which sounds like the English word ‘salvation’. I assume this is a biblical thing, but the names sound more Spanish. I don’t know a lot about Filipino or Spanish culture nor their histories (religious or otherwise), could someone explain?
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Sure, there are English people with names like “White” or “Shoemaker”.
You do realize that it is the same in the English language too right? How many times have you come across a woman named Hope, Faith, etc.? How many Peter, Matt, John, or Jerry have you met?
Using words as names is common in every culture.
It’s just that the names are often warped and changed over time, or in a foreign language so you don’t think of them that way.
Daniel for example is from the Hebrew meaning “God is my Judge”
Victor means Victor or Conquerer in Latin, Victoria is the female version.
Francois literally means ‘a frenchman’
Jiro in Japanese means ‘second son’
You are right about the Spanish. The Philippines were a Spanish colony from 1565 to 1898. And a lot of Spanish Catholic missionaries were serving the colony. So you expect to find a lot of Spanish and other Catholic influences there including in things like names.
Virtuous names are common in many cultures. The idea is that by giving them that name, they’ll embody it. Most names have some virtuous connotation, even if they’re not entirely apparent (like Sofia means wisdom in Greek, so the name Sophie or Sophia is technically a virtue forename).
Many Christian nations with English as one of a multitude of national languages will use English virtues as forenames. It’s a common practice in West Africa, particularly Ghana and Nigeria. The Philippines is a strongly Catholic nation, and has had influence from both former colonists (Spain, and later the US) and so you’ll find both Spanish and English virtues used as forenames. This used to be a practice far more common in the US and England (check out some of [these Puritan names](https://historyofnothing.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/puritans-and-their-weird-names/)), but being on the nose has somewhat fallen out of popularity.
Even in English there are plenty of somewhat common word names such as Grace, Ash, Sky, West, months like April and August, Deacon, and the list goes on.
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