Mercedes, the grandmother's name that is no longer used

BarcelonaThere is names clearly associated with the territory, such as Tura in Olot, Gil in Osona, Vinyet in Sitges, and Mercè in Barcelona. But is Mercè really a popular name in the city—with Eulalia's permission—that is the patron saint? If we go by the statistics, we could say that the Mercè festivities are more popular than the name itself.

The Virgin of Mercy is the co-patron saint of Barcelona and has given rise to the name Maria Mercè or Mercè. However, it is not a particularly popular name in either Barcelonès or Barcelona (only 2.35 women out of every thousand in the city are named Mercè). It is more popular in other regions, such as Lluçanès, in first place with 11.97 women out of every thousand named Mercè, Solsonès (7.78 out of every thousand), and Conca de Barberà (5.51 out of every thousand). If you ask about the patron saints of the other district capitals, Narcís in the city of Girona is more popular (4.25 out of every thousand), but Tecla in Tarragona (0.28 out of every thousand) and Anastasi in Lleida (where the frequency is so low that the data is not shown for privacy reasons) less so. Eulalia is also not more successful (1.43 per thousand) in Barcelona, ​​​​but her diminutive, Laia, is (5.53 per thousand).

"Perhaps in small towns or medium-sized cities there is more need to identify and assert oneself," explains Francesc Calafell, a researcher at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology CSIC-UPF. In any case, the decline in popularity of Mercè as a name chosen for babies is part, explains Calafell, "of the replacement cycle of names," since they have an expiration date and often respond to trends. What has happened with Mercè is the same as what has happened with Pilar, Carme, Montserrat, and Dolors (although this one has resurrected in the form of Lola). Statistics corroborate this: in the decade of 1940-1949, Mercè was ranked 41st among the most popular names given to women, and from then on its popularity plummeted, to the point that between 2020 and 2023 it was already number 645 in the ranking. Another very significant fact is that neither in 2022, nor in 2023 nor 2024 in any of the four Catalan demarcations was this name given to at least 4 babies. "There are grandmother names and aunt names. And Mercè is starting to become a grandmother name," says Calafell. In fact, the average age of Mercedes is 58.2 years, according to data from the INE (National Institute of Statistics).

Most of today's Mercedes were born before 1975, and it's very likely, this expert adds, that "when they were born, they weren't called Mercè but Mercedes and had to go through the process of changing their name." And Mercè and Mercedes have "very different connotations, since the latter is almost aristocratic—it's the name of members of the Spanish royal family."

Calafell also points out that "the cycles for girls' names are shorter than for boys'." The reasons? That girls' names "are more imaginative, and that accelerates replacement," but also patriarchy: "Boys' names tend to be more common within families, where it's more common to name a grandfather."