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.
San is the apocope of santo (masculine form of saint), all masculine names use the form San except those that start with the syllables to- or do-.
See? English isn’t the only language with semi-arbitrarily pointless rules