Hi,
So I have lived in Spain now for almost 10 years and I will be applying for citizenship soon. As part of this process I can pretty much chose my Spanish name. Or I can keep my polish name.
The problem is that my name is very polish, like Grzegorz Filipowski. Every time someone has to write it down and look me up in a database I have to show them my ID. When it happens over the phone I have to spell it. Every time I meet someone they ask me what’s my name is and then repeatedly try to pronounce it while I say ‘yeah… close enough’. It’s pretty annoying and it would be solved by simply changing my name to something Spanish like Gregorio González or something.
What do you think? Would you see it as a practical thing to do or as a stupid intent at impersonating a real Spaniard?
Kind of related, but I knew an ethnicity Polish person from Argentina. They had a Spanish first name and a Polish last name.
As others noted, it is pretty common for Asians to take on a Anglo first name to go with their traditional last name, and this seems to be something that happens to immigrants to Latino countries as well. You can do you, but I don’t think people would blink at changing your first name. However, people seem to get touchier about the last name.