Frida von Quality

In Perú the system for last names is a little different from what is custom in the United States. This past week, I have been working a lot with writing Peruvian names. Here, a person keeps the last name of his/her father and mother. Then when they have children, the child keeps the paternal name of each of his/her parents. So, as an example, if I were to give my name in the Peruvian manner, my name is Frieda Marie von Qualen Onken. Then, when I have children, there name would be firstname middlename husband’s name von Qualen.

Whenever I ask people their name here, they always give their entire name. Usually I just look at them with a blank face. They rattle the name off so quickly, I cannot even catch the first name. Then I have to ask them for just their first name.

This past week I helped with the enrollment for Vaso de Leche (a government program that provides milk for children six years and under, nursing mothers, and pregnant women). For each person, I had to write the recipient’s full name, his/her father’s full name and his/her mother’s full name. I now know some family names in this region.

Just as Peruvian names are difficult for me to remember, my name is difficult for others to remember. Usually the “e” in Frieda never makes it in the name because that would make the pronunciation “Free-ay-da” in Spanish. I have also noticed my socio always writes my last name as “von Quality”. I think this is great! I have not corrected her, because I really do think it’s a great name. Who knew that von Qualen could be improved?