FAMILY NICKNAMES : KAKAROTE

A branch of the Rivera family on Guam is better known as the familian Kakarote. Or Kakaroti.

MEANING

According to the older dictionaries, kakarote means "to hop while spinning." Thus it also came to mean "fickle," that is, someone who isn't steady; someone who changes opinions or plans; just like spinning ends up in an unpredictable place. Kakarote also came to mean a "rascal," someone mischievous. Tricky people, like rascals, are unpredictable.

ORIGIN

The word sounds like it's borrowed from Spanish, but there is no Spanish word cacarote nor even cacarrote. There are a handful of Spanish words, some of them slang, that come close to cacarote, meaning many different things. Cacarote, or words similar in sound, appear in Galician, a language in northwestern Spain, and in Brazil, where they speak Portuguese but have many of their own words and slang and, in the modern age, there is even a Korean doll called cacarote. So, there's just no way for sure we know how kakarote came into the Chamorro language. The Marianas were under Spain for 230 years, but influences on us came from all over the globe.

FAMILY

The Kakarote seem to be the descendants of Juan Rivera and his wife Rosa Ulloa. This couple would have been born in the mid 1800s as their children were born beginning in the 1870s.

Their sons, who would generally be mainly responsible for carrying on the clan name, were :

Joaquín, who married Antonia Rosario and also Ana Tenorio

Manuel, who married Magdalena Dueñas Borja and also Dolores Dueñas Borja

Ignacio, who married María San Nicolás. This couple had a large number of children.

José, who married Carmen Taitingfong Agualo. This couple also had a large number of children.

JOAQUÍN ULLOA RIVERA

@ Kakarote