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ArchivesTortilla as a female name
In the film Rue Cases Nègres (English title Sugar Cane Alley), one of the primary female characters is a girl named Tortilla.
As someone who isn't used to hearing "Tortilla" outside the context of Mexican food, I found her name very interesting. I was wondering what the origin of Tortilla as a female given name is. The character Tortilla in question is a poor black girl in 1930s Martinique.
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Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having.
As someone who isn't used to hearing "Tortilla" outside the context of Mexican food, I found her name very interesting. I was wondering what the origin of Tortilla as a female given name is. The character Tortilla in question is a poor black girl in 1930s Martinique.
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Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having.
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Replies
My guess is that the scriptwriters didn't expect people to think of this as her official given name, but as a nickname that everyone uses for her.
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The only problem with that logic is that it's based off a novel. :( I suppose I'll have to read it and see if there's some kind of an explanation in there.
All the characters had wonderful names in the film, in any case--Tortilla, Orelie, Albicy, José, Julien, Medouze, Amatine, etc. Just a really neat mélange of names.
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All the characters had wonderful names in the film, in any case--Tortilla, Orelie, Albicy, José, Julien, Medouze, Amatine, etc. Just a really neat mélange of names.
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This message was edited 4/3/2007, 4:40 PM
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I got to thinking of the etymology of the word, and found this on yourdictionary.com:
"American Spanish, diminutive of Spanish torta, cake, from Late Latin, a kind of bread."
Perhaps in its original context, the girl was being called something that seemed to a native speaker like "cupcake"?
Just speculating.
"American Spanish, diminutive of Spanish torta, cake, from Late Latin, a kind of bread."
Perhaps in its original context, the girl was being called something that seemed to a native speaker like "cupcake"?
Just speculating.
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are you sure the ll's in tortilla aren't pronounced??
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Err...they aren't pronounced. The name in the film was pronounced exactly like the food.
That has nothing to do with my question, though. I want to know if it comes from the same or a different origin as tortilla-the-food (especially bearing in mind that these would be blacks whose main interactions would be with Frenchmen rather than Spaniards), if it has much history of use, and what it means.
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That has nothing to do with my question, though. I want to know if it comes from the same or a different origin as tortilla-the-food (especially bearing in mind that these would be blacks whose main interactions would be with Frenchmen rather than Spaniards), if it has much history of use, and what it means.
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