Xavier Pérez Giménez
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Nerdy facts about my name:
My first name Xavier is pronunced [tʃəβiˈe] in Catalan, which is my native language. (Both spelling and pronunciation are different from the Spanish version, Javier.)
An approximate pronunciation for an English speaker is chu-bi-AY.
I have two last names, Pérez and Giménez, as it is customary in Spain.
Note that Pérez is not a middle name, but the first (and main) component of my last name. So in particular it would NOT be correct to address me as "Xavier Giménez" or "Xavier P. Giménez". On the other hand, "Xavier Pérez" is fine.
Although there is no official hyphen between my last names, I often sign my articles as Pérez-Giménez to avoid (or maybe create?) confusion.
Here are the traditional rules for last name transmission in Spain:
- Everybody has two last names;
- Women do not change their last names when they marry;
- If the father's last names are A B and the mother's last names are C D, then their offspring's last names become A C.
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