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Graciela Orfelina certainly is a full name. It does have a romantic quality to it.

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It isn't terribly uncommon to shorten longer names like Graciela to Gracie, Gracia or Grace, so unless she tells you she was deliberately Anglicizing her name, I wouldn't read to much into it. I had a Great-grandfather named John Bernard who always went by either Bernard or J.B. He had friends who knew him for decades that didn't realize his first name was John.

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On the other side of the family, I have a relative named Lina whose Granddaughter was given the middle name Leneé in her honor. In her case, the family Frenchified her name rather than Anglicized it.

Wow, that is beautiful! Grace is also a great name.

I can see how a nn becomes the name everyone knows. My dad is Raymond Thomas, but has always gone by Tom. Most people probably think that Tom/ Thomas is his real first name. The granddaughter being named Grace instead of Graciela could be just because the generation in between doesn't think of mom as Graciela Orfelina.

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Since her kids are American (I'm assuming they were born or spent most of their lives here), they see themselves as American, not Dominican, so their tastes would be more in line with American tastes.

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As an American with a boring, typical first and middle name combo (three in the family tree, ugh), I'd love to have an ethnic name that stands out more. In high school, I remember feeling a bit jealous of a classmate named Teata, since she could be the only one in the world with that name, and I can't get away from Jennifers. But, my students Edwin, Alex, and Darsi from Honduras are probably glad they have English names and fit in.

Graciela is nice. :)

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I don't think it's a bad thing to change a name when honouring. A guy names his son Rob or Robin in honour of his best friend Robert, for example. Totally fine, imo. My middle name, Marjorie, as another example, is honouring women on both sides of my family, but using the spelling my parents happened to like best. My sister is named Esther in honour of my grandmother (Stella). And if I ever have two daughters, the second one will be named Arwen in honour of my mother (Patricia).

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And I'm guessing your boyfriend's grandmother liked Grace or she wouldn't have used it for most of her life. So using Grace in honour of her honours her personality as well as honouring her given name. That's how I'd see it anyway.

This message was edited 7/7/2015, 1:52 PM

I'm going against the grain here, I don't care for either of the three names. Maybe his grandmother didn't like her name and chose to go by Grace. As for the girl named after her, that could have been because they didn't know his grandmother's real name either or perhaps just wanted something to honor her without being the exact same name.

I personally feel its a bit "over the top" Not the names by themselves but together as a combo. They are both long names and paired together, it sounds very "Princessy" and "Pretentious" and "Frilly"

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Personally, I would pair "Graciela" with a shorter name; a 2 syllable or 1 sylabble middle name. Heck, even a 3 sylabble middle name but 1 or 2 would be best

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I kind of have this mental rule that if you have a long name (a 3 syllable or longer) have the middle name be shorter as to balance the combo out better. Also, I don't like when both names end the same way. It just adds onto the glitter, frilliness and princess style.

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I try to advoid pairing long names with long names (short names with short names) and same endings as much as possible.

This message was edited 7/7/2015, 11:11 AM

Oh, what a pretty name! I'd forgotten about Graciela. Must add it to my list. I'm guessing Orfelina is a feminine variant of Orfeo -- it's fun.

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The Anglicisation doesn't surprise me, but it makes me sad. I have a fair few friends who are either first or second generation immigrants and their names always get Anglicised in one way or another. One friend, when introducing themselves, hesitated for a moment with the English pronunciation of their name and later on, when I would use that pronunciation, it would occasionally take a moment for them to go, "Oh, yeah, that's me." I only realised that that was what was happening when someone mentioned the other pronunciation to me.

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Anyway, I'm rambling a tad. I think Graciela would have been much more fun as a middle name, and more fun as a first name, too, but maybe Grace is used to being Grace and prefers it. I don't think I'd want to honour someone using a name I knew for certain they disliked. But wow. Graciela Orfelina.

Gorgeous

It really IS a fun name.

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Reminds me of a little girl named Angel that I know. I just assumed her full name was Angel since it's incredibly common in the Philippines. Turns out that her name is actually Evangelica!

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I also know an Oona who is actually named Winona. Go figure.

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I do think it's sad they didn't use the full Graciela, but then again, they might not have known!

I like both these names: Graciela and Orfelina, even though I didn't meet with Orfelina earlier. It's a pity that's she changed such a beautiful names to Grace, which I find a bit boring. But maybe she thought that her name would be mispronounced by Americans, or maybe she just wanted to have more American name or more ordinary in US.

Graciela is very nice, more interesting than Grace, but I can see how it would end up being Grace once they got to America. Americans of the time would likely not have pronounced Graciela the way it was intended, and who knows, maybe she or her parents just liked the sound of Grace?
I can't say I like Orfelina at all though. I remember reading a series of books when I was little about the Orphelines, which was about girl orphans (orphelines) in an orphanage in France.