CHamoru Nicknames

The “Better Known As” system

CHamorus have developed a way of identifying people other than their given names. Whether this “better known as” system came about because it was difficult to keep track of people due to many people having the same saint’s names, or from old clan names, can only be speculated upon.

The following “better known as” names are placed in categories according to various references.

Note from the author

Oral information is essential to the study of CHamoru genealogy. It is extremely vital that a researcher attempts to acquire the knowledge of informed elders for family genealogies. I was fortunate to have the cooperation of my own elders.

There was, however, one problem that I encountered from the information that I solicited. I am of the post-war generation of CHamorus. Traditionally CHamorus did not have a surname. Upon the arrival of the Spaniards and through the introduction of religion and civil government, surnames were assigned to each individual. Even with the introduction of the surname system for the purposes of documentation, the CHamoru families never fully adopted the system.

It was accepted, but never practiced, to address commonly the various family lineages. Even today most CHamoru families are known primarily by their unofficial family clan references. As a result, most CHamoru families have adopted a reference of the “better-known-as” system. It is important to have knowledge of these family clan references especially in obtaining genealogical information from recognized informants. There were several occasions when the informant only knew the individual according to his clan reference. I often had to resort to other informants to acquire the surname.

Again, I am of the post-war generation of CHamorus. Although I learned of certain family clan references, I was not knowledgeable of the majority of family nicknames.

To illustrate this system take the CHamoru family surname Sablan. There are several branches of the Sablans today that are referred to as “Ramases de “Te’,” “Deda’,” “Katingting,” “Dongga,” and “Teleforo.” These references are applied to the person’s first name. If there are four Juans in each branch, each will be addressed as “Juan Te’,” “Juan Deda’,” “Juan Katingting,” and “Juan Donggat.”

The “better known as” system is still widely used in the CHamoru society especially in the obituary announcements and political advertisements. There are various categories that designate each family according to either the surnames, derivative of first names, actions, objects, status, occupation, and names of animals or plants. Several references are so descriptive and humorous that oftentimes the present generation despises the descriptive attributes.

I collected a few of these “better-known-as” attributes with the assistance of my father, and my generous friend, Pedro Diaz Perez of the Ramas de Gollo family. Since this was written before there was an official orthography in CHamoru I resorted to my own intuition of the phonology and symbol correspondences of the CHamoru language.

By Anthony “Malia” Ramirez

Editor’s note:	Originally written for the Liberation Day booklet on the 40th anniversary of the Liberation of Guam.