KOTLA
A huge branch of the Pangelinan family is better-known-as the Kotla family.
Where Chamorro families got their nicknames is often a mystery. Sometimes the origin is easy to figure out, especially when the nickname comes from the name of an ancestor such as the Siket (Castro) family, named for their ancestor Ezequiel (Siket) or the Nåndo family (Peredo), whose ancestor was Fernando.
Other times, the family has preserved a family story, such as the Charot (Taitano) clan which has the lore that their ancestor was given a pair of shoes known as charol in Spanish.
As for Kotla, if we looked for a Spanish origin, it is possibly derived from an old Spanish term corlar, which means to apply a gold varnish on something, like the beautiful violin in the picture above.
Spanish corlar becomes Chamorro kotla, because Chamorros change an L or an R to a T when it's the final sound in a syllable. Another example of this would be ÅTTAT, which comes from Spanish altar. Notice that the L and the R are the final sounds of their syllables, and Chamorro changes them into a final T.
Juan Flores Pangelinan is the first documented person we know who was called Kotla. Why? I have no idea, and, as far as the family is concerned, there are a few theories but no one can guarantee their theory.
But since kotla means "to varnish," could it be that Juan worked in varnishing? Or perhaps he varnished something so well that people nicknamed him kotla. Chamorros loved to tease, and would tease you for something that stood out about you, even if it were a one-time event. Juan was a big landowner; he owned a lot of property in the Hågat and Sumay areas and their surroundings. The land records are still existing, in large part. He owned that land because he worked that land, growing, harvesting and selling. People in those days made a lot of things by hand (there was no Home Depot). This includes the tools they used for farming, carpentry and so on. Varnishing would have been a part of that work.
But, the truth is, we have no solid evidence how the nickname came about. We only know what it means, if indeed Kotla comes from corlar.
SIGNATURE OF JUAN KOTLA IN 1898
He didn't need to add his first name Juan. His flourish at the end of his surname was enough identification.
My grandmother's maiden name is Castro, Familian Siket. I remember she would often tell me the reason her family name was Siket was because her grandfather's name was Esiquiel.
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