THE PROJECT

Galician Surname Maps (Cartografía dos Apelidos de Galicia, GSM) is a project of the Instituto da Lingua Galega of the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela to provide a research tool for the study of the geographical distribution of surnames in Galicia. This employs a geographical information system combining statistical data with a spatial analysis.

AGSM offers data of potential interest for dialectology, the history of the lexicon, sociolinguistics, demographics, economic history, genealogy and other disciplines. Today´s surnames came about because of the need to identify and distinguish between individuals. For this purpose, use was made of nicknames, patronyms or names of places, and these only began to become hereditary in Galicia in the late Middle Ages. Most Galician surnames are either toponymic, i.e. they come from place names, such as Piñeiro or Castro; patronymic, from names of people, such as González or Vázquez; or lexical, referring to an occupation, social class, animal, physical trait, etc., such as Ferreiro, Conde, Pita, Rouco or Louzao.

GSM provides facts about the frequency and distribution of surnames in Galicia based on the 2001 local census data made available by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (Madrid) to the Real Academia Galega. This site informs on the number of instances of a surname registered in each council district and the percentage for that district, relative to the total number of surnames registered there. This numerical information is displayed on a thematic map of council districts, with the frequency of occurrence of a given surname indicated through a colour scale.

The GSM team updates the site regularly with new additions and following suggestions from its users. If you wish to make an enquiry or a suggestion, please write to us using the form on the Contact us page. Thank you in advance for your contributions.

THE GSM TEAM

Project coordinators: Ana Isabel Boullón Agrelo and Xulio Sousa Fernández.

Contributors: Raquel Rodríguez Parada (2005-2007), Rocío Dourado Fernández (November 2006-October 2007), Miguel Mosquera Fociños (2008-2010) and César Osorio Peláez.

Software development: Ana Isabel Suárez Moreno (2009-2010), César Osorio Peláez (2011).

The project team is grateful for assistance from José Ramón Ríos Viqueira of the Escola Técnica Superior de Enxeñería (USC) with the design and development of the software application.

Galician Surname Maps is a research project of the Instituto da Lingua Galega, USC. It was developed with funding from the Real Academia Galega (for the 2006 version) and the Secretaría Xeral de Universidades (for the 2010 version). The initial version of the software was produced in cooperation with the Centro de Supercomputación de Galicia (CESGA).

Methodological note: because of statistical secret, results of records with 5 or less occurrences by council districts cannot be shown

Please quote as: Ana Isabel Boullón Agrelo / Xulio Sousa Fernández (dirs.): Cartografía dos apelidos de Galicia. Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega. <http://ilg.usc.es/cag/> [Sub: <data>]