I swear, sometimes the simplest things end up being the biggest time sinks. I was trying to map out a ridiculously long route through Spain the other week—don’t ask why, it involved a very cheap flight and a lot of wishful thinking—and I stopped to look at Zaragoza. The name of the city is simple enough, but when I searched for what the people are called, my screen just exploded with different answers.
The official, proper term, the gentilicio, is supposedly “Zaragozano.” Fine, that makes sense. But then almost every blog written by a local, every football forum, they kept throwing around the word “Maño.” And just to make things worse, some historical nerd sites kept insisting on “Caesaraugustano.” I looked at the three names and seriously thought I had somehow mixed up three different cities. I mean, why would one place have three completely different ways to call its residents?
The reason I didn’t just ignore this minor detail and move on? Pure, stupid pride, to be honest. I was arguing with this buddy of mine, Raúl, who lives down south. We were debating some local festival traditions, and I wanted to sound like I knew what I was talking about. So I dropped the “Zaragozano” term, feeling very smug. Raúl just burst out laughing, the kind of laugh that makes you instantly defensive. He said, “You mean the Maños? Get the name right, you tourist.” That stung. I hate being corrected when I’ve already done what I thought was the basic research. So, instead of planning my trip, I decided I had to prove that the official term was the only one that mattered. I spent the next few days in a rabbit hole proving Raúl wrong, and that’s how I ended up learning way more about regional Spanish history than I ever wanted to.
My Attempt to Untangle the Zaragozan Naming Mess
I started out by assuming there must be a clean, simple answer. There wasn’t.
I began by wading through the dictionary definitions. Merriam-Webster, Oxford Learner’s—they only listed the formal Spanish-to-English translation: person from Zaragoza = Zaragozano. Okay, check. Official term confirmed.
Then I hit up the Wikipedia page, which usually has a section for regional nicknames. That’s where the “Maño” term was officially recognized as the common, informal term. Wikipedia suggested it came from the word hermano (brother) but used in an affectionate, local way, maybe dating back centuries. This was starting to make sense. It was like calling people from Liverpool “Scousers”—it’s not official, but everyone knows it.
But the true test wasn’t the internet; it was the people. I pinged three different folks I know who have lived in or around Zaragoza. I sent out the same message: “If you bump into someone from your city, what do you call them?”
- The first guy, a university professor, replied almost immediately with, “Zaragozano, formally. But we are all Maños, obviously.”
- The second one, a retired construction worker, just sent back, “Maño.” No explanation needed.
- The third one, a young art student, wrote, “Maño, unless I’m filling out a job application, then Zaragozano.”
The consensus was absolutely clear: The official name is the one you use for bureaucracy, but the real identity is something else entirely.
I did spend a distracting hour looking into “Caesaraugustano,” too. That one turned out to be the easiest to dismiss. I traced the name back to Roman times, when the city was founded by Emperor Augustus. It’s a historical term, a throwback, the sort of thing you put on a statue plaque. But nobody on the street uses it. I realized that term just exists to make the locals feel superior about their ancient history, but it’s completely impractical for real life.
The Real Meaning I Finally Got My Head Around
So why are there so many? It’s what I finally figured out: It’s because language has to do three different jobs at the same time: be correct, be historical, and be affectionate.
Zaragozano: This is the correct box you tick. It serves the administrative need for a clean, non-regional label. It’s what you use when you want zero confusion.
Maño: This is the identity badge. It carries the history, the regional accent, the shared jokes, and the emotional connection. It’s what you say when you want to signal kinship. It’s the difference between saying “my fellow citizen” and saying “my brother.”
Caesaraugustano: This one is just for showing off. It reminds everyone they were important 2,000 years ago, but it’s totally dead in terms of common usage.
I wasted those three days trying to find the single “right” answer when the truth is that all three are right, depending on who you’re talking to and why. The language mixes up history and official rules, and the locals just roll with it. I finally called Raúl back a few days later, swallowed my pride, and said, “Alright, I did the homework. They are the Maños. You were right.” He just chuckled again, and I felt like I finally understood the joke instead of just being the butt of it.