Up to now, there are still amongst us who think, because their family names sound and spell like Spanish, they are descendants of Spaniards – be these “conquistadores”, creoles, illustrados or other Spaniards of pre-American era.

We really don’t have anything against Spanish or anything related to Spain.

But wouldn’t be a great idea that we associate our family names with the richness of Philippine history like when Filipinos were ordered to take up family names based on an edict by Governor-General Claveria in 1849.

See this page – http://angkan.com/the-origin-of-family-names/