Date:  Tue, 29 Jul 1997 10:01:27 -0700
From:  Peter McGraw <pmcgraw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LINFIELD.EDU>
Subject: Re: Garcia (Marquez)

On Tue, 29 Jul 1997, Ron Butters wrote:
>
> I'm sure you are right--and for Mexico as well. I knew that ONE of the names
> could be dropped--maybe I was mixing up Spanish and Russian? (Does anybody
> know about Russian?)

In Russian the patronymic comes first, but is not the surname, which comes
last, e.g., Boris Nikolaievich Yeltsin. The suffix -evich means "son of."
Russians often use the first name and the patronymic in contexts where we
would use just the first name. And now I'm getting out of my depth, so
won't hazard a guess as to whether there are different social contexts for
first-name-only vs. first-name-plus-patronymic.

>
> And why, by the way, did Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe have such a complicated
> name?
>

Even though I'm fluent in German, Dutch and Germanic philology (and not
Russian), I haven't a clue as to this one. "Ludwig" is German, "van" is
most likely Dutch, "Rohe" looks German, and the pattern "X van der Y" (as
opposed to just "van der Y") as a surname is not typical for either
language.

Peter McGraw