About Filipino names

Non-Filipinos who marry Filipinos must be warned that certain repeating syllable names are reserved for sexual organs and should never be used to nickname their children. "Titi" or "Tite" is the Tagalog word for "penis," while "Kiki" or "Kike" is the Tagalog word for "vagina". "Tito" or "Kiko" are acceptable names, however, as "Kiko" is usually a nickname for "Francisco" but the parents should be keen to raise these children as overconfident, bullies or out-of-school youths, as these names mutate into "Tite" and "Kike" once the children get into high school.
Parents also like to name their little boys names that remind everyone else that their kids are, in fact, male. Examples are Boy, Manny and Boyet.

Once again an example of geographical separation is exemplified by the naming of children. When it was agreed by the urbanized Manilans that "Nene" was to only refer to girls, the Visayas and Mindanao areas have, to this day, been nicknaming their male children "Nene" and "Lili." This continues on to their adult lives, hence some Filipinos have uncles whom they call "Tito Nene," "Tio Nene," "Tito Lili" or "Tio Lili." "Lilly," "Lily" which are girl's names, and "Lili," which is a nickname for both men and women, have no distinguishable variations in pronunciation.For some reason, the accepted nickname for "Maria" is "Angge", pronounced "UNG-geh" or "UNG-gi." It would appear that since the Philippines is prodominantly Catholic, "Maria" is acceptable for birth and baptismal certificates, but for practical purposes no Filipina is clean enough to be called by the name of the Mother of God. Hence, Maria, unlike other countries who also use the name, gets "uglicized" in the Philippines. This also continues to their adult life. Thus most Filipinos would call their grandmothers "Lola Angge" and not "Lola Maria."

This is in stark contrast with the male usage of the Holy Family. Jose, Joseph and Jesus (Heh-sous) are normal names for Filipino males. The 1920's to 1950's saw a trend of adding "-ing" to the nicknames. This does not necessarily shorten the names, however, nor is it any attempt to make their children sound cuter. "Felicia," for example became "Pilising." "Maria" became "Maring" (if not "Angge" as explained above). "Gundina" or "Segundina" became "Gunding." "Cecilia" became "Siling" ("See-LING"). "Francisco" became "Prasing" ("Prah-SING") or "Paking" (Pah-KING). And inexplicably, "Vicente" became "Inting". As to be expected, people in the provinces have continued to do this practice, oblivious to the trends of the more urbanized pockets of the Philippines, especially Manila. "Jun," for example, continues to become "Juning" ("Joo-NING).
On slightly fewer occasions, the "-ang" suffix was also used during those years. "Matilda" became "Mitang," "Cecilia" became "Sisang." "Maxima" became "Simang."

In the 1950's and 1960's, there was a trend to spell and pronounce names backwards. Ex. Chito became Otich and Nick became Kinik. A popular comedian, who is now close to a hundred years of age, Dolphy, will once in a while be called "Pidol" by his "contemporaries." The late actress, Nida Blanca, was called "Ading" ("Ah-DING"). Thus it would be observed that some people who grew up together during that era are comfortable calling each other backwards while the younger generation cannot even begin to, so to speak, "get in on the action." In the 1970's and 1980's, another trend came about when Filipinos started lengthening their names by adding unnecessary letters to their names. "Boyet" became "Bhoyette" and "Manny" became "Mhanny". "Nanette," which had already became acceptable as such, further mutated into "Nhanhette." Even "Boy" became "Bhoy."

The name "Claudia" seems to have been only recently introduced as an acceptable name for Filipino girls. As such, only the presently younger generation would have "Claudia" in their birth and baptismal certificates.