QuilotoaWhy, in Spanish, is saint sometimes San and sometimes Santa for naming cities?
It’s because nouns in Spanish carry gender! Which is crazy but it works.
“San Francisco” → Francisco is a male name.
“Santa Bárbara” → Baŕbara is a female name.
Masculine form would be santo like in Santo Domingo. San seems to be an abbreviated form of that.
Yeah, “Santo” is the better example. I’m actually not sure if there’s any particular distinction for why sme place names are “San” and other are “Santo”, perhaps it comes from historical baggage from whichever branches of explorers / conquerers founded each town.
All masculine saint names use the form San except those names that start with the syllables to- and do-.