Naming conventions: Garsia, Garcia, de Paz, de Pass and de la Paz.

The church records show that all of Aaron’s children were given the name Garsia without any appendages. In no record have I been able to find his own name with any embellishment such as the de Paz of his father – Jacob Garsia de Paz. Correspondence with Al Phillipps suggests that the original name of the family was de Paz or Depass and that the addition ‘Garsia’ comes from marriage into a family of that name at some earlier stage. Note

It has been suggested that the form of the name with an ‘s’ in place of the more usual ‘c’ found in Spain was introduced in an attempt to hide the Jewish origins of the family. Since the family was openly practicing its faith for at least two generations in Jamaica this seems unlikely. Also both forms (with ‘c’ or ‘s’) are found in the Jamaican records. Another explanation is that the family spent time in Italy (Leghorn?) where the usual Spanish spelling would have caused the name to be pronounced ‘Garchia’. Aaron’s son and heir (Willoughby Marston) had his children christened de la Paz Garsia maybe to give them an exotic flourish with some connection with its earlier appearance in Spain where it could have been written Depaz, Depass, de Paz, de Pass etc. There is an extensive collection of material on the Depaz family in the Southampton University Library

I am grateful to Al Phillipps for a correspondence on this subject.