Many years before the Spaniards stood at the soils of our country the Philippines and the Malaysian races have already rested at the different areas of the province of Cagayan, Barangay Annafatan was then a thick forest and Ilocanos were the first descendants of the barangay.
Long time ago, there lived a couple who has a lovely daughter named Ana. Ana was so charming and beautiful yet she has a speech problem.
One day, while Ana was putting up a "sagpatan" - nailed bamboo strips used to store kitchen utensils, a Spaniard passed by and asked: como te llamas, señorita? Hearing the foreign dialect for the first time, Ana was shocked and stuttered, thereby answering: sagpatan, kabsat. All she thought the Spaniard was asking what she is doing, where in fact the Spaniard was asking the here name.
Right after that encounter, the Spaniard went home and shared to his friends the charming beauty of Ana whom he knew by the name "sagpatan".
The young stranger came back to see Ana, and asked her name again, and Ana answered: Ana, but the Spaniard interrupted: Oh, I remember, "anapatan' is your name. He clipped the two words "Ana" and "sagpatan", thereby forming the new word "anapatan".
Many years had passed and the couple was gone, so with Ana. However, it remains in the memory that that place was called "anapatan", and as the years passed by "anapatan" was changed to ANNAFATAN.
(Translated into English by Arison Paul R. Florentino. Original Ilocano text was written by Alexander S. Florentino, Arison's father.)