Filipino Last Name Generator

Generate Filipino last names from every layer of the country's history: Spanish-derived names like Santos, Reyes and dela Cruz, native names like Dimaculangan, Macaraeg and Magsaysay, and Chinese-Filipino names like Cojuangco and Tiongson. Every entry is one surname in its Philippine spelling.

About Filipino last names

Most Filipino surnames go back to one decree. In 1849 Governor-General Narciso Clavería ordered every family to take a fixed surname, and officials handed out names from a printed catalogue, the Catálogo alfabético de apellidos. That is how Santos, Reyes, Garcia and Mendoza became Filipino names, and why a Spanish surname here says nothing about Spanish ancestry: it was assigned, not inherited. Pages of the catalogue went out town by town, so in some towns most old families still share a first letter.

The catalogue also held native words, and many families kept names older than the decree. Tagalog names often state a virtue: Dimagiba means cannot be destroyed, Dimayuga cannot be shaken, Magtibay to make strong. Gat and Lakan were titles of the old nobility and live on in Gatdula, Gatmaitan and Lacanilao. Macapagal and Pangilinan are Kapampangan, Macaraeg and Agbayani come from the north, Tumulak and Magbanua from the Visayas, and Alonto and Sinsuat from the Maranao and Maguindanao families of Mindanao.

Chinese-Filipino families form a third layer. Cojuangco, Tiongson and Yuchengco began as the full Hokkien name of a forefather, often with the polite ending -co, written out the Spanish way. Shorter names such as Sy, Go, Uy and Chua keep their Hokkien sound.

How to choose Filipino last names

• Build the full name the Filipino way: given name, then the mother's maiden surname as a middle name, then the father's surname. Maria Santos dela Cruz has a Santos mother and a dela Cruz father, so pick two names from the list.
• Keep the Philippine spelling. It is Gonzales with an s, Valdez and Corpuz with a z, Roxas with an x, and Ybañez and Ynares with the old Spanish Y. Accent marks are dropped, but the ñ stays in Osmeña and Zuñiga.
• Let the name place your character. Dimaculangan and Macatangay sound like Batangas, Pangilinan and Lansangan like Pampanga, Agcaoili and Bumanglag like the Ilocos, and Tumulak and Cabahug like Cebu.
• Do not read ancestry off a surname. A family called Villanueva may have no Spanish forebear at all, and many families with Hokkien roots took Spanish names at baptism.
• For a story set before 1849, be loose with surnames. Many people then carried a saint's name or a devotion as a second name and did not always pass it on, and so many had picked delos Santos, dela Cruz and del Rosario that the decree was partly meant to end the confusion.

Frequently asked questions

What are the most common Filipino last names?

Names such as dela Cruz, Santos, Reyes, Garcia, Mendoza, Ramos, Bautista and Villanueva come near the top of most counts, and Juan dela Cruz is the stock name for the ordinary Filipino. All of them are in the list, along with rarer names such as Tatlonghari, Batungbakal and Dayanghirang.

Why do so many Filipinos have Spanish last names?

Because of the 1849 decree of Governor-General Clavería, which made fixed surnames compulsory and supplied a catalogue to choose from. Much of the catalogue was Spanish, so Spanish names spread to families with no tie to Spain. A Filipino named Fernandez or Castillo need not have a single Spanish forebear, any more than one named Magsino.

What do names like Dimaculangan and Dimagiba mean?

In Tagalog di means not, and Dima- names say what cannot be done to the family: Dimagiba cannot be destroyed, Dimayuga cannot be shaken and Dimaculangan, roughly, cannot be shortchanged. Other native names are plain words, such as Bituin (star), Dalisay (pure), Liwanag (light) and Tatlonghari (three kings).

Is it dela Cruz, Dela Cruz or de la Cruz?

All three are in use and they are one name. The Philippines usually closes the particle up as dela, delos and del, where Spain writes de la and de los, and the capital letter varies by family and by form. The list uses lower case, as in Juan dela Cruz, because a generated surname usually follows a first name.

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