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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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.
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