If you are familiar with Christianity, you will understand what I mean. I was raised as a Christian, and I learnt obviously about Jesus, Son of God. So 'Jesus' was the name, the synonym of 'Son of God'. They only ever was one Jesus, and that was the Son of God.

Jesus the son of God? or Tom son of Tom?

Coming to Spain, I realized, Jesus wasn't anything special at all. For his time, he had a name as common as Bob, Tom or Bill. If my carefully inflicted religious card house hadn't already crashed years before that, it certainly would have then, because realising that Jesus was just Tom from next door is quite disappointing.

I found out because every third person here in Spain is called Jesus (the other two are Juan and Carlos). People here are not very adventurous with names. They often still follow the tradition of naming their first born son after his grandfather.

At least they all have two first names and two surnames. That makes identification a little bit easier. If you were just talking about 'Juan', you could be referring to twenty different people. But instead you can say:

'I'm talking about Juan Carlos Fernandez Blanco, not Juan Jesus Fernandez Fernandez'...

No wonder they can't say our first names. The people here changed our names to a similar sounding Spanish equivalent. My Spanish name is Caro (from Carolina, actually, my name is Karin), my husbands name Andrés (Andrew). Names of famous people are changed as well, like Prince William is here Príncipe Guillermo.

So remember all you Juans and Carmens, if you feel the need to pray, clasp you hands, wish good health for your friends and family, hope for world peace, in the name of our lord Tom, amen.