Today’s Exactly100: What’s in a Name

According to a friend, around 1844 Governor General Claveria ordered all Filipinos to adopt new family names because of the scandalous spread of offspring surnamed after friars and the Guardia Civil, e.g. Dela Cruz, Delos Reyes, etc. Babies of unknown fathers were given the name De Dios.

In Albay, Franciscan friars carried out Claveria’s order by designating a letter of the alphabet (such as “B” in Tabaco, and “C” in Malinao) as the first letter of the new surnames in each municipality. The Franciscans were so efficient that half the population of Tabaco City today have surnames starting with “B”. /mdm