The transmission of surnames in Chiloé through feminization

Abstract

This study analyzes the practice of surname feminization on the island of Chiloé between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, drawing on parish and civil records. Although Hispanic onomastic traditions generally favor the invariability of surnames, in this territory recurrent cases of morphological variation are documented, particularly in Indigenous surnames, in which feminine suffixes were applied to distinguish women from men. The article places this phenomenon within a comparative perspective alongside other European and Indigenous naming traditions, and links it to processes of oral transcription, social flexibility, and the transformations imposed by the institutionalization of the Civil Registry in the late nineteenth century. The study concludes that surname feminization in Chiloé represents an original feature of local written culture and an innovative contribution to gender studies and historical onomastics.