The family names of Gitanos or Spanish Romani in the listings of 1783-85

Abstract

The last Royal Order addressed to Spanish Gypsies in 1783 required that local authorities listed all Gitanos residing in their counties ("partidos"). By mid 1785 a Census had been collected that included data on 12.037 persons, 756 of whom had died. These lists form the most important document on the Gitano minority the Ancien Régime. Unfortunately, they have not been studied in depth. As a first outcome of such a study, this paper analyzes the family names that Gitanos bear in these censuses. In total there are 567 different surnames, a large number for such a population, although the 20 more popular include half of the people listed (53%), and 55 (10% of names) identify 75% of all people. The concentration of the population in the most popular surnames is higher than in the Spanish population at large, already noted in Europe for this bias. All Gitano surnames of 1785 are of Spanish origin, and have suffered the Christianization and Castilianization of most family names in the country. The most popular were common patronymics as Fernández, Ximénez, García, Rodríguez, Muñoz, and also surnames of Spanish origin that have become associated with Gitano identity in some regions such as Heredia, Vargas, Cortés, Reyes, Montoya, Moreno, Santiago, Maya, Amaya, Gabarri, etc. Baptism and mixed marriages are the most likely source for the adoption of such surnames by this minority that likely experienced some "name drift" and "name inbreeding". Thus, the frequency of some Gitano surnames is probably related to their earlier adoption.