nombre

Forms

nombre m (plural nombres)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote nomne, nompne, nonbre and nomre.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish nombre, inherited from Latin nōmen (“name”), through a Vulgar Latin form *nōmine made on its oblique stem.^{[4][5][1][6][7]} Old Spanish nomne shows the loss of the unstressed vowel; the group /mn/ then became /mbr/.^[3][8][2]

The same Latin word is Portuguese nome, Galician nome, Asturian nome, Catalan nom, French nom, Italian nome and Romanian nume.^[3][9] Coromines holds that the Catalan, French, Occitan and Italian words continue the Latin nominative and accusative, while the Castilian word continues the form with the oblique stem.^[10]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *nōmn̥, from the Indo-European word for “name”, which de Vaan writes Proto-Indo-European *h₃neh₃-mn and Wiktionary *h₁nómn̥.^[11][1] Its cognates include Old Church Slavonic имѧ (imę) and English name.^[1][11] Wiktionary explains the long /oː/ of the Latin word by association with gnōscō (“to know”), and the grammatical sense “noun” as a semantic loan from Ancient Greek ὄνομα (ónoma).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) has the word in a prayer: „do dizen monte Calvarie pusiéronte en cruz, por nombre en Golgotá” “where they say Mount Calvary they put you on the cross, by name in Golgotha”.^[12][4] The Auto de los Reyes Magos (c. 1180) has the request „Decidme uostros nombres” “tell me your names”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X uses nombre for “name” and for “fame, reputation”, and the phrases a nombre de “in the name of, on behalf of” and en el nombre de Dios, which opens a work.^[13] Covarrubias records dar el nombre, the watchword soldiers give at night when challenged, and the sense “fame”; he follows Festus in deriving Latin nomen from nosco “to know”.^[14] Autoridades adds “title by which a thing is known”.^[15] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 adds “authority by which one acts for another”, mal nombre “nickname”, the military watchword, usually a saint's name and so also called el santo, and the grammatical sense.^[16]

In 1855 Baralt condemned nombre de familia for apellido, nombre de bautismo for nombre de pila and hacerse un gran nombre as Gallicisms.^[17] Modern dictionaries distinguish the given name from the full name of a person,^[18] and the DLE's grammatical sense is a class of words with gender and number.^[5] In Mexico, El Salvador and Costa Rica ¡nombre! is a colloquial interjection.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has nombre.^[12][4]
• c. 1180 – the Auto de los Reyes Magos has the plural nombres.^[12]
• c. 1194–1211 – the Liber Regum has the form nomne.^[12]
• 1208 – the Cortes de León have por nuestro nombre “in our name”, the first record in a contemporary copy.^[12]
• 1250–1279 – the Lapidario uses the word for “name” and “reputation”.^[13]
• 1513 – Nebrija gives Latin nomen, appellatio and vocabulum.^[19]
• 1525 – the first records from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the soldiers' watchword.^[14]
• 1817 – the Academy adds mal nombre and the watchword el santo.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. nomen, nominis”.^[21]

Meanings

Noun

1. name: a word that designates or identifies a being or thing: No recuerdo el nombre de esa calle.^[5][1]
2. A proper noun; a person's given name.^[5][18]
3. fame, reputation: un pintor de mucho nombre.^[5][13]
4. (grammar) A noun.^[5][1]
5. (grammar, traditional) The class of words comprising nouns and adjectives.^[5]
6. (military, historical) A watchword given at night to recognise friends.^[5][14]

Interjection

1. (colloquial, Mexico, El Salvador, Costa Rica) Wow!^[1]
2. (colloquial, Mexico, El Salvador, Costa Rica) No way!, nope.^[1]

Word family

• nombrar
• pronombre
• renombre
• sobrenombre
• antenombre

Related words

• nómina
• nominal
• nominativo
• denominar
• ignominia
• onomástico
• Latin nōmen
• Portuguese nome

Usage notes

The interjection ¡nombre! of Mexico, El Salvador and Costa Rica is explained as a contraction of ¡no, hombre!.^[1] Set phrases include nombre de pila “given name”, mal nombre “nickname” and en nombre de “on behalf of”.^[5][1] The Cantar de mio Cid also has a separate Old Spanish nombre “number, abundance” (averes a nombre, line 3262), which Menéndez Pidal takes as a noun formed from nombrar “to count”;^[22] in the 15th-century Castilian of the Crown of Aragon nombre “number” was taken from Catalan.^[23]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. nombre
3. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. nomen
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. nombre
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. nombre
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 490
7. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
8. ^ Cabrera, Ramón (1837), Diccionario de etimologías de la lengua castellana, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta de Marcos Bueno
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5949
10. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 5, 952
11. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. nombre
13. ^ a b c Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. nombre
14. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1166
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 676
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 601
17. ^ Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 462
18. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. nombre
19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 386
20. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. nombre
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 741
22. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 362
23. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. nombre