A collection of names from two early census records taken on Guam, one in 1728 and the other in 1759, tells the story of the horror and despair of a people brutalized by war, disease and slavery.
 

Background:

    The Spanish rounded up the survivors and forbade them to go near the sea. They were afraid that the surviving Chamorus would attempt to escape, reducing the slave population even further. Although the period of open warfare was past, the people continued to resist by preventing and terminating their pregnancies. They did not want to bring into the world children who would suffer the horrors that they were suffering.

    If you are interested in reading the details about this sad period in Guam's history, see Guahan, Guam, the History of Our Island by Pedro C. Sanchez, or Destiny's Landfall: A History of Guam by Robert Rogers.
 

The nature of 18th Century Chamoru names:

    This tells us two things. First of all, the Chamoru names here are not surnames. That is, they are not family names. This tells us that the people of Guam at this point had two given or "first" names, a Spanish baptismal name and a Chamoru name which was presumably used in everyday life.

    Secondly, the lack of duplication tells us that the ancient Chamorus did not draw their names from a collection of name words, as we do in English, but instead, drew their names from the lexicon of everyday language, as is done by the Chinese. In the 1728 census, we find a very small number of duplicate names, and they are used randomly for males or females. In other words, names or words are not associated with a particular sex as they are in European languages. In the 1759 census, we find the beginnings of a trend toward the European system of naming. Although most names are unique, there are some names that have become very popular, and that are used predominantly for one sex or the other.

    In modern Chuukese culture, people change their names freely throughout life. Dr. Rosa Palomo, a Chamoru language specialist at the University of Guam, believes that the same thing may have been true of the ancient Chamorus. This means that the name recorded in the census record may not have been the person's birth name, but one acquired later in life.
 

What the names are saying:

    Whereas a great many Chamoru names have positive meanings of the usual type, such as Dahi, "friend" or Fa'asi, "clean," an unusual number have names that express despair, hardship, striving, and deprivation. We also see many names involving basic needs such as food or the desire for such things.

    Following are the names of despair. References to the sea, wind, fishing and sailing probably refer to the Spanish policy of forbidding the Chamorus access to the sea.
 

    The following are defiant names, showing the undercurrent of resistance that persisted after the military defeat of the Chamorus by the Spanish.
 
 
 

    These names reflect the struggle to survive and to support one another, and the longing for basic necessities in hard times:
 

Chamoru names today:

    We can see this very transition happening now in Palau and Micronesia. The people of these islands traditionally have had no surnames, but contact with Western culture has placed pressure on them to adopt surnames. Typically, when a person is asked to a supply a surname, he uses the given name of his father (or, more rarely, his mother). This practice may continue for a few generations, meaning that each generation has a different surname. Eventually, however, the process fossilizes when a person uses his father's surname (i.e.: his grandfather's name) instead of his father's given name. In the islands today, different families are using different options for choosing surnames, and no tradition or uniform practice has yet established itself.

    By means of this process, the names that were used during the time of the Chamoru people's greatest hardships and struggles have survived to the present day.