San pedro or santo pedro?

[thistle]

Could our Spanish speaking friends help me out.
I always thought male saints in Spanish were Santo but I also see San used. Which is correct and what is the difference?

 

[Dale_M]

I’m not a Spanish speaker, but I see you are in the Philippines. There are several towns named San Pedro in the RP, notably one on the island of Luzon, on the shores of Laguna de Bay. And the city of Tacloban is on the shore of San Pedro Bay (a finger of Leyte Gulf.)

I’m pretty sure that San Pedro is correct. I used to live in San Pedro, California!

 

[the_hazel_nut]

Could our Spanish speaking friends help me out.
I always thought male saints in Spanish were Santo but I also see San used. Which is correct and what is the difference?

Santo means Saint (male). But when you use it as a title in front of a males name you would normally use San, like San Diego, etc.

However with names that have To or Do at the beginning, such as Santo Domingo or Santo Tomas, sometimes Santo is used instead of San, becuase if you said “San Domingo” it might sound like “Santo Mingo” and if you said “San Tomas” it might sound like “Santo Mas”.

There isn’t a hard and fast rule about it so sometimes you might you hear San Domingo, or Santo Diego or something like that. Saying “Santo” isn’t wrong, it’s just less common.

 

[thistle]

Santo means Saint (male). But when you use it as a title in front of a males name you would normally use San, like San Diego, etc.

However with names that have To or Do at the beginning, such as Santo Domingo or Santo Tomas, sometimes Santo is used instead of San, becuase if you said “San Domingo” it might sound like “Santo Mingo” and if you said “San Tomas” it might sound like “Santo Mas”.

There isn’t a hard and fast rule about it so sometimes you might you hear San Domingo, or Santo Diego or something like that. Saying “Santo” isn’t wrong, it’s just less common.

Thanks.

 

[Rolltide]

And just to make things more confusing, San Diego is often popularly contracted in Spanish to Santiago.

 

[Pons]

The apostles called James in English are usually called Santiago in Filipino, at least. This was carried over from Spanish and is likely a contraction of “Santo Iago”. Diego is also likely derived from Tiago, after Santiago was interpreted as “San Tiago”. But all variations of James, including James itself, are all derived from… Jacob. Wikipedia covers it.

The use of Santiago instead of Iago, Diego or even Jaime means that every time a James is mentioned, he is called a saint.

 

[Fidelis]

The apostles called James in English are usually called Santiago in Filipino, at least. This was carried over from Spanish and is likely a contraction of “Santo Iago”. Diego is also likely derived from Tiago, after Santiago was interpreted as “San Tiago”. But all variations of James, including James itself, are all derived from… Jacob. Wikipedia covers it.

The use of Santiago instead of Iago, Diego or even Jaime means that every time a James is mentioned, he is called a saint.

Actually, San Diego is Spanish for “St. Didacus,” the patron of the mission church founded in that city by Blessed Junipero Serra.

There is a little statue of St. Didacus from the mission days prominently displayed in the San Diego historical museum located on the site of the original mission building on the hillside overlooking Mission Bay.

 

[Cristian_B]

I speak Spanish so I might help.

In words like ‘santo’, ‘bueno’ or ‘tanto’ when used in a sentence the ‘-to’ or ‘-o’ disappears.

For example: ‘San Juan’ (St. John); it is not ‘Santo Juan’ but ‘San Juan’. Saying otherwise would be grammatically incorrect.

Another example: ‘buen padre’ (good father). It is not ‘bueno padre’ but ‘buen padre’. Saying ‘bueno padre’ would be gramatically incorrect.

A last example would be ‘tan bueno*’ (so good). It is incorrect to say ‘tanto bueno’.

*and notice that when ‘bueno’ (good) is at the end of the phrase you do not take away the ‘-o’ just like in ‘este santo’ (this saint). You take away the end of the word only when it’s and adjective or adverb, as far as I know. For example, in ‘santo de Dios’ (saint of God) the ‘-to’ remains. But, though the phrase does not exist, if we would say Saint God it would be ‘San Dios’.

So it’s ‘San Pedro’ (Saint Peter).

Did this help?

edit: this generally happens when ‘saint’ is used as a title. Saying ‘el santo Pedro’ (the saint Peter) is correct but if you say ‘Santo Pedro’ is incorrect. Or at least,t his is how I remember it.

 

[Dale_M]

Did this help?

edit: this generally happens when ‘saint’ is used as a title. Saying ‘el santo Pedro’ (the saint Peter) is correct but if you say ‘Santo Pedro’ is incorrect. Or at least,t his is how I remember it.

It helped me.

Thanks!

 

[patrick457]

And just to make things more confusing, San Diego is often popularly contracted in Spanish to Santiago.

Actually, Diego does not equal Sant’ Iago ‘St. James’. Diego is indeed sometimes rendered as ‘James’ in English along with names like Iago/Yago, Santiago, Jaime, or Jimenez (hence sometimes St. Juan Diego is sometimes referred to in older English literature as ‘John James’!) but just as another poster mentioned it is the Spanish form of the name Didacus.