A 19th-century Spanish nobleman had 88 names.

World History

T hough he's usually referred to as Don Alfonso de Borbón y Borbón for simplicity's sake, that wasn't the 19th-century Spanish nobleman's full name. It was actually Alfonso María Isabel Francisco Eugenio Gabriel Pedro Sebastián Pelayo Fernando Francisco de Paula Pío Miguel Rafael Juan José Joaquín Ana Zacarias Elisabeth Simeón Tereso Pedro Pablo Tadeo Santiago Simón Lucas Juan Mateo Andrés Bartolomé Ambrosio Geronimo Agustín Bernardo Candido Gerardo Luis-Gonzaga Filomeno Camilo Cayetano Andrés-Avelino Bruno Joaquín-Picolimini Felipe Luis-Rey-de-Francia Ricardo Esteban-Protomártir Genaro Nicolás Estanislao-de-Koska Lorenzo Vicente Crisostomo Cristano Darío Ignacio Francisco-Javier Francisco-de-Borja Higona Clemente Esteban-de-Hungría Ladislado Enrique Ildefonso Hermenegildo Carlos-Borromeo Eduardo Francisco-Régis Vicente-Ferrer Pascual Miguel-de-los-Santos Adriano Venancio Valentín Benito José-Oriol Domingo Florencio Alfacio Benére Domingo-de-Silos Ramón Isidro Manuel Antonio Todos-los-Santos de Borbón y Borbón — a total of 88 names, for a world record among historic royalty.

Born on November 15, 1866, Alfonso wasn't especially notable beyond his lengthy moniker and the fact that he was part of the House of Bourbon as King Charles III of Spain's great-great-grandson. Spanish royalty at the time gave their children and heirs long names in order to honor as many saints as possible, and it seems Alfonso's parents, Dom Sebastian Gabriel and Maria Christina, were determined to go all out. Both of them were infantes, a title given to the children of Spanish and Portuguese monarchs, but Alfonso lost his claim to the Spanish throne when he married a commoner named — simply — Julia Méndez y Morales. Spain's current king, Felipe VI, also belongs to the House of Bourbon.

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By the Numbers

Letters in the Spanish alphabet (the 26 letters in English, plus "ñ")

Year the House of Bourbon was founded

1272

Did you know?

The longest word in the world has 189,819 letters.

That would be methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylalanyl…isoleucine, which is abbreviated here for obvious reasons — pronouncing the entire thing would take three hours. Because it's the chemical name for a protein, some folks consider it cheating to dub it the world's longest word, and instead go with a Sanskrit word that's 195 characters long (or 428 when transliterated into English): निरन्तरान्धकारित-दिगन्तर-कन्दलदमन्द-सुधारस-बिन्दु-सान्द्रतर-घनाघन-वृन्द-सन्देहकर-स्यन्दमान-मकरन्द-बिन्दु-बन्धुरतर-माकन्द-तरु-कुल-तल्प-कल्प-मृदुल-सिकता-जाल-जटिल-मूल-तल-मरुवक-मिलदलघु-लघु-लय-कलित-रमणीय-पानीय-शालिका-बालिका-करार-विन्द-गलन्तिका-गलदेला-लवङ्ग-पाटल-घनसार-कस्तूरिकातिसौरभ-मेदुर-लघुतर-मधुर-शीतलतर-सलिलधारा-निराकरिष्णु-तदीय-विमल-विलोचन-मयूख-रेखापसारित-पिपासायास-पथिक-लोकान्.

More of a sentence than a word, it appeared in the poet Tirumalāmbā's 1970 book Varadāmbikā Pariṇaya Campū, and can be translated, quite evocatively, as follows: "In it, the distress, caused by thirst, to travelers, was alleviated by clusters of rays of the bright eyes of the girls; the rays that were shaming the currents of light, sweet and cold water charged with the strong fragrance of cardamom, clove, saffron, camphor, and musk and flowing out of the pitchers (held in) the lotus-like hands of maidens (seated in) the beautiful water-sheds, made of the thick roots of vetiver mixed with marjoram, (and built near) the foot, covered with heaps of couch-like soft sand, of the clusters of newly sprouting mango trees, which constantly darkened the intermediate space of the quarters, and which looked all the more charming on account of the trickling drops of the floral juice, which thus caused the delusion of a row of thick rainy clouds, densely filled with abundant nectar."

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