Ranking the names in my family tree

I recently re-connected with a family member who showed me the Chilean family tree she had been working on for the past few months. In many ways, I feel like a different person for having seen it. I thought we were from Santiago — no, we’re from the lakes in the south. We’re from Calbuco, from a volcano. We’re also from Iquique, in the desert in the north. Of course, go further back, kill the greats and the great-greats until you get to the 1500s and like almost everybody in Chile today we become the direct ancestors of colonisers. Mine is Captain Giovanni Bautista Pastene Solimana. A captain from Italy, sent to conquer the southern seas of Chile with orders from Spain. Only 14 generations between us. I rebuke him.

I’ve always enjoyed my last name being ‘de la Puente.’ But because I’m the first (first but also half?) generation born in England, de la Puente kinda sounded made up to me. The family tree full of de la Puentes makes the world feel more solid. It’s kind of exciting also because I like my name, but there are so many better names than Gabrielle. I have also learnt in this process that surnames in Chile are [married surname] + [mum’s maiden name] so things can get quite long.

Here are my favourite de la Puentes ranked for absolutely no reason other than weird historical familial joy:

🇨🇱 Leonor De La Puente Flores, idk when she was born but she got hitched in 1873 in San Isidro. I’m ranking this one top because I would have that as my name, no question.

🇨🇱 Zoraida del Carmen de la Puente born 1922, my granddad’s cousin. It’s got a Z! Zoraida, pretty cool.

🇨🇱 José Geronimo de la Puente, born 1820s est., 5 generations back. He’s the last de la Puente I can find before it goes back through other surname-means, so he really geronimoes the last name on the tree </3

🇨🇱 Clotilde Carmen De La Puente, daughter of José, born 1843. CLOTILDE! es real never heard that name before so it has to go on the list. I don’t want it though. Just interesting

🇨🇱 Great-great-uncle Darío José Abelardo De la Puente Flores b.1884 is pretty good as well, simply for being so long

Finally:

🇨🇱 Gabriela de la Puente Yuraszeck AND Gabriela de Lourdes de la Puente, two of my granddad’s cousins. There were Gabriel’s all along! I wonder what they were like :)

Bonus point:

🇨🇱 Esmeralda Solimana, 15 generations back, born 1490, and mother of that coloniser I mentioned at the beginning. Not a de la Puente but Esmeralda is such a magical name!

Is it too late to change my kitten’s name to Geronimo………………………………….