Calle Marianela
No official record survives of why this name was given; to the Spanish ear it evokes above all the heroine of Galdós’s novel of the same name.
The sign for Marianela says a woman’s name and little more, since the municipal reason that brought it to this stretch of Bellas Vistas is undocumented. Anyone looking for a nymph or a goddess behind the name will not find one.
What does resonate is literature. In 1878 Benito Pérez Galdós published Marianela, the story of a poor, plain-faced orphan who acts as guide to the blind young Pablo and secretly falls in love with him. In the book they call her Nela, from a name inherited from her mother, María Canela; hence María Nela, Marianela. The girl dies of grief when Pablo, his sight restored, falls for the beautiful Florentina. The novel spread the name across the Spanish language, and it is the likeliest association for anyone who reads it today.
Marianela remains a short street in the neighbourhood raised beside the old camp of Tetuán de las Victorias.