Names and Naming Practices in the Philippines
I once saw a post online that says we should start popularizing/mainstreaming giving local names to our children (e.g. Tagalog names such as Himig, Mayumi, Dakila, etc.) because our names are too "generic." In fact, some places in the Philippines give traditional names to their children.
In the Cordilleras, it is a common practice to give a traditional or indigenous name to their children (these are names that sound like their local language because some of the names really are words from their languages). Usually, the legal name of a child is a mixture of an indigenous name and a westernized name. These names can either be from the same name as their relatives (e.g. the name of their grandparents) or can be the local word for nouns or adjectives. According to a friend from the Cordilleras, traditionally, elders name the children with words that describe them (e.g. when a child is healthy, they will name the child with a word related to being healthy). However, in recent times, Cordillerans started giving their children the name of their ancestors to keep the name alive.
The parents are usually the ones who decide on the name, but the elders (grandparents and other relatives) can also give their piece.
From my observation, Cordilleran children are preferred to be given nicknames or are called by their indigenous name when at home. However, in school or outside their homes, they are usually identified by other people, specifically non-Cordillerans by their "more common" name.
Not all Cordillerans are given a traditional name though. I think, one of the factors is how deeply they are still rooted in their ancestry. I have a friend who has roots in Ifugao but is born and raised in Baguio City. We call him by his last name (I think mainly because we find it unique) and at first, it didn't sit well with him so he told us he went to force his mother to give him an "Igorot" name so we stop calling him by his surname. He said his mother just laughed it off saying that he has no Igorot name and it was too late now to give him one. Unlike some of my Cordilleran friends who were born and raised in their native communities, that particular person no longer had those connections around him when he was born because his family had migrated to the city.
In Cagayan where I'm from, traditional names were a far-fetched concept. Children are given "generic" or westernized names. It would've been nice if local names were also mainstreamed in our community as there are several ethnolinguistic groups in the region so all those languages can be a good source of local names. My mother and her siblings were all given religious names (they were named after saints and important Roman Catholic celebrations), but it was one thing that she did not appreciate much because she had a rather lengthy and old fashioned name. That could also be the among the reasons why she gave her children just a single and more common name, as opposed to the popular way of giving two, three, or even more names to children, just like the majority of my cousins and relatives many of whom are named after popular personalities (celebrities and other personalities in Philippine history).
