One of the problems I faced over the many years I spent visiting Viana rather than living here was trying to remember everybody's names. As a fairly regular visitor, and a fairly rare English one at that, everybody was kind enough to remember mine. Sure, I got (and get) a few variations of it - I've been called James, Jamie, Jameson and others, but that was more about the difficulty of pronunciation of a name that doesn't really exist here. I knew that they knew me by name and couldn't honestly say the same was true in reverse.
Still, I thought - no problem. There was always the locals' trick to fall back on, which works just as effectively in English. We may call each other 'mate' or something, but here you can be called pretty much anything descriptive that fits, for just me or for me and my missus together, in Galego or Castellano - 'tio', 'chaval', 'caballero', 'joven', 'rapaz', 'Inglés', 'pareja', or most commonly here, 'rey/reina'. This last one literally means 'king/queen', and has got me into trouble because I initially thought it was Spain-wide, but it turns out to be a very local habit. I got some odd looks from friends from other parts of Spain when I used these, so no longer do.
You can be called by whatever you happen to be doing or wearing when greeted, even - 'Good morning, ironer.' 'How's it going, tennis player?' These are all handy ways out which served me well (or badly) until such time as we came here permanently, when I thought I'd easily put names to so many of these familiar faces.
This has been complicated by a number of factors. First and foremost, I'm getting on a bit, the memory is not what it once was and I'm increasingly shit with names. But the locals haven't made it easy for me, either. They seem to share about six names between everybody. There's much. much less variety than I was used to back in London, so for example I know at least three Maria-Josés and I can't tell you how many Josés or Carloses. It doesn't help also that some of the people whose names you were pretty confident of are not called what you thought they were at all because of the absolutely standard practice of changing some of them, just as we do. So where Alexander is likely to be known as Sandy in English, for example, people called Fransisco here are routinely called Paco. Apart from the ones who are called Fran, obviously.
I don't think it's just me for whom this can be problematic. This, for example, though I've changed the specific name and occupation to anonymise it (probably pointlessly because, given what I've said above, it could be about any one of half a dozen people, but anyway...), is an extract of a conversation I once heard:
"You know Lourdes?"
"Which Lourdes?"
"Lourdes, Lourdes's daughter."
"Which Lourdes?"
"The baker."
"Lourdes's daughter is a baker?"
"No, Lourdes, the daughter of Lourdes the baker."
"Oh. No, don't know her. What about her?"
See what I mean?
As if in recognition of this shortage of names (or perhaps in a village-wide plot to confuse the stupid Inglés), everybody has a nickname. Some of the nicknames are echoes of what happens in the UK - the carpenter is known as Chippy, for example. But why the hell is our mechanic friend called Gali - essentially, 'chicken'? Because his dad was called Gali of course. Why was he called Gali, though? Because he kept chickens. Right. Of course nobody else around here keeps chickens(!), so naturally he's the one who became so-known. I don't even know his real name.
In a further twist, some people have multiple nicknames depending on who you're talking to. One acquaintance of ours has at least three. So I still have to use the old tricks more than I like, and more than I thought I'd have to. It's getting there, though - I can now sometimes tell my missus, who's from here, what some people's names are when she doesn't know. She's still way, way ahead of me on all the familial connections, though, seeming to know who's so-and-so's second cousin, who's whatshisname's half brother etc.
Don't even get me started on that. I'll stick to trying to learn all the names for now, thanks.
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