Teams & Riders Alberto Contador Discussion Thread

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LaFlorecita said:
It is an unfortunate combination of last names, but I like the first name. Although it sounds more Italian to me?


I agree that Luca does sound more Italian (and I know of a couple of Italian race car drivers with that name). I also like the name. Actually I like the Italian version of the name better than the English version.
 
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I don't know why people keep using "accountant" as the translation. "Contador" doesn't mean that in European Spanish, it means "counter, meter".
LaFlorecita said:
It is an unfortunate combination of last names, but I like the first name. Although it sounds more Italian to me?
Yeah, "Luca" is Italian, the Spanish form is "Lucas".

I was going to say that celebrities like to give out fancy names, but to be honest most of my friends are choosing similarly fancy names for their children so yeah.
 
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hrotha said:
I don't know why people keep using "accountant" as the translation. "Contador" doesn't mean that in European Spanish, it means "counter, meter".
That doesn't really make sense as a surname though :p

LaFlorecita said:
It is an unfortunate combination of last names, but I like the first name. Although it sounds more Italian to me?
Yeah, "Luca" is Italian, the Spanish form is "Lucas".

I was going to say that celebrities like to give out fancy names, but to be honest most of my friends are choosing similarly fancy names for their children so yeah.
Is it really considered such a fancy name? It is actually a decently common name here and I wouldn't think of it as unnecessarily fancy or 'unique' which is something I typically hate. Maybe you Spanish are just too traditional :p
Although I must admit I expected a more traditional name from Berto!
 
Re: Re:

LaFlorecita said:
hrotha said:
I don't know why people keep using "accountant" as the translation. "Contador" doesn't mean that in European Spanish, it means "counter, meter".
That doesn't really make sense as a surname though :p

LaFlorecita said:
It is an unfortunate combination of last names, but I like the first name. Although it sounds more Italian to me?
Yeah, "Luca" is Italian, the Spanish form is "Lucas".

I was going to say that celebrities like to give out fancy names, but to be honest most of my friends are choosing similarly fancy names for their children so yeah.
Is it really considered such a fancy name? It is actually a decently common name here and I wouldn't think of it as unnecessarily fancy or 'unique' which is something I typically hate. Maybe you Spanish are just too traditional :p
Although I must admit I expected a more traditional name from Berto!

Agreed, I don't see how Luca is a fancy or unusual name. Luke, Luca,and Lucas are all names that are considered traditional or not unusual names in the US. I guess if Alberto had named him Lucas instead of Luca it would be more traditional in Spain?
 
The US has a much longer tradition of using names from different linguistic backgrounds. Spain isn't the same (leaving aside Basque and Catalan names, of course; but even Canarian names are likely to give people pause in the peninsula). Around here, it does sound fancy to use a foreign variant of a local name, like you're trying a bit too hard to be cool and special. That said, "Lucas" would be traditional almost to the point of being old-fashioned, so maybe he liked the general sound of it, but not that particular connotation it has in Spanish.

Anyway, as I said, this is changing and fanciness is on the rise. Unfortunately, sometimes not in such a victimless way :p ("Luca" is alright, fanciness aside).
 
There's another possibility: he liked "Lucas", but that name is too strongly associated with the late humorist Chiquito de la Calzada, one of whose most famous catchphrases was "¡Hasta luego, Lucas!", and Contador didn't want the kid to hear that every single day for the rest of his life. So he settled for "Luca". This is my headcanon.
 
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hrotha said:
The US has a much longer tradition of using names from different linguistic backgrounds. Spain isn't the same (leaving aside Basque and Catalan names, of course; but even Canarian names are likely to give people pause in the peninsula). Around here, it does sound fancy to use a foreign variant of a local name, like you're trying a bit too hard to be cool and special. That said, "Lucas" would be traditional almost to the point of being old-fashioned, so maybe he liked the general sound of it, but not that particular connotation it has in Spanish.

Anyway, as I said, this is changing and fanciness is on the rise. Unfortunately, sometimes always not in such a victimless way :p ("Luca" is alright, fanciness aside).


True enough. Where I grew up had a lot of Greeks and Italians and thus a lot of Greek and Italian names being very common. Still wouldn't call names from other cultures fancy though. Over here we have people coming up with weird names to be unusual. I'm talking about weird as in not words or strange spellings of names.
 
Apr 9, 2018
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Irondan said:
What was the screen name of the original account? I will reset the password and send it to you in a PM.

Would you believe I don't remember? It was almost 5 years ago that it got lost... rarely had anything to say that someone else didn't say better. Appreciate the offer though.
 
From the CN article on the 2017 Vuelta. “It might even shock some people, but to be perfectly honest, if I weighed up the pros and cons between doing a Vuelta where I'd calculated everything and I ended up winning it overall, and a Vuelta where I was able to attack exactly when I felt like it, I prefer the latter.”

That’s interesting. I’m very happy that he’s happy with the stage win. He’s preference counts more than anyone’s. But man just thinking about what could have been if he didn’t have those problems early on. He was climbing so well. I understand Angliru might not have happened, but capping off a career like his with a GT win....
 
Jul 6, 2016
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SafeBet said:
It might sound fancy to un-italian ears, but Luca is a very ordinary name for us.
Of course it'd probably seem a bit fancy to name a kid Lucas in Italy.

I guess it's the same with Gianluigi Buffon's son, who's named 'Louis' instead of Luigi.
 
Apr 12, 2018
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Re: Re:

LaFlorecita said:
SafeBet said:
It might sound fancy to un-italian ears, but Luca is a very ordinary name for us.
Of course it'd probably seem a bit fancy to name a kid Lucas in Italy.
It doesn't sound fancy to my ears :p I think the Spanish are just very traditional when it comes to naming kids (like the Italians ;) )
My kids name are english......... but hey i am half italian and their mother has nothing whatsoever to do with anything italian, except me. lol ...
 
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hrotha said:
That said, "Lucas" would be traditional almost to the point of being old-fashioned
I just checked some statistics and it turns out "Lucas" has gone back into fashion. The average age of Lucases in Spain is merely 16, so that tells us lots of people have been calling their kids "Lucas" lately.
 
Re: Re:

hrotha said:
hrotha said:
That said, "Lucas" would be traditional almost to the point of being old-fashioned
I just checked some statistics and it turns out "Lucas" has gone back into fashion. The average age of Lucases in Spain is merely 16, so that tells us lots of people have been calling their kids "Lucas" lately.
That is interesting
So what about Luca
Has to be a low average age if it's a kinda recent thing to go for the "fancy" names :p
 
Froomey's son is named Kellan and there is a PlayStation
video game character named Lucas Kellan so if Alberto
had named his son Lucas it might appear that he was
still obsessed with the TopDawg. And nobody would
want that, would they? But Luca is a lovely name.