Brazil Naming Customs

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Brazil

Personal Names

Understanding customs used in surnames and given names can help you identify your ancestors in records. Learn to recognize name variations and see clues in names.

Online Tools

Sometimes, deciphering a given name in an old handwritten document is not as easy as one might suppose. This could be due to the widespread use of abbreviations or to the difficulty in reading the handwriting. Use this lists of names to assist you in interpreting the names mentioned in the documents.

• List of Surnames
• List of Given Names
• Abbreviations

For the origin and meaning of names:

• Behind the Name: Portuguese Surnames

Surnames

A Portuguese name is typically composed of one or two given names, and a number of family names (rarely one, but often two or three, sometimes more). The first additional names are usually the mother's family surname(s) and the father's family surname(s). It is not uncommon in Portugal that a married woman has two given names and six surnames, two from her mother's family, two from her father's family, and the last two coming from her husband. In addition, some of these names may be made of more than one word, so that a full feminine name can have more than 12 words. For instance, the name "Maria do Carmo Mão de Ferro e Cunha de Almeida Santa Rita Santos Abreu" would not be surprising in a married woman. For practicality, usually only the last surname (excluding prepositions) is used in formal greetings.

There has never been a standardized method of establishing surnames. However, there are several prevalent patterns.

• Historically, daughters were commonly given their mother's surname, and sons were given their father's surname.
• It was also common for children to receive both of their parents' surnames. When this combination occurred, the mother's surname would typically precede the father's surname.
• Women tended to retain their maiden surname throughout their life.
  • In the late 19th century, the it became common for women to adopt adopting their husband's surname, but this practice faded by the end of the century.
• From the mid 20th century onward, individuals tended to include their last (father's) surname in formal settings.
• Prepositions that can be used in Portuguese surnames are da, das, do, dos and de, such as in Maria da Cunha, José das Neves, Joana do Rosário, Luís dos Santos, Gabriela de Sousa, etc. and mean "from" or "of." Da, dos, etc. are contractions of the preposition de and a definite article (o, as, etc.), meaning "from the" or "of the." The current convention in Portuguese is that they be written in lower case.

Surname "Changes" of Immigrants in the United States

As Immigrants moved into English-speaking countries, their surnames were impacted in a variety of ways.

• Most of the time the surname spelling changed to accomodate the different phonetic spelling in the English language. In other words, the recorder tried to write the name the way he heard it.
• Surnames may also have been translated outright into English, sometimes with a slight twist.
• Within the community, such as the local parish, immigrants may continue to use the original name, while at the same time using English-language equivalents when dealing with local government, census takers, and other English speakers.
• Different branches of the same family may adopt various surname spellings.
• Prior to 1900, formal surname changes documented in local court records are relatively rare.
• During the early 20th Century, especially the World War I era, surname changes are recorded more frequently, as immigrants or, more often, their children, tried to adopt more neutral surnames.

Given Names

The name 'Maria'

The given name Maria is extremely common as a feminine given name and even combined with masculine names. In Portugal, it has always been common. Traditionally Maria is more common as the first part of a double first name combination; these may be formed by several different elements.

• Religious predicates (often honouring one of the Virgin Mary's denominations):

Catholic devotion festivities: Maria da Conceição (referring to Our Lady of Conception), Maria das Dores (Our Lady of Sorrows), Maria da Assunção (Assumption of Mary), Maria da Natividade (Nativity of Mary).

• A place of a Marian apparition: Maria de Fátima (Fátima), Maria de Lurdes (Lourdes), Maria de la Salete (La Salette), Maria Aparecida (common in Brazil, after Aparecida), Maria Nazaré (Nazareth).
• A virtue or a nature element (many of which have lost religious associations nowadays): Maria do Céu (Heaven or Sky), Maria da Luz (Light), Maria do Mar (Sea), Maria da Graça (Grace).

The name of a saint: Maria de São José (after Saint Joseph).

Other types of combinations:

• Maria paired with a different feminine given name: Maria Madalena, Maria Teresa, Maria Antónia (or Antônia, in Brazil), Maria Gabriela, Maria Beatriz, Maria Eduarda, Maria Luíza, Maria Fernanda, Maria Alice, Maria Carolina, Maria Dulce
• Maria paired with a masculine given name: Maria João, Maria José, Maria Manuel, Maria Luís, José Maria (which is often abbreviated as JM). It is not unusual to find masculine names such as João Maria, José Maria, Manuel Maria, Luís Maria etc. In this case, Maria would always be the second given name, in honour of the Virgin Mary, and the first name would be a masculine name. This custom was fashionable among the Portuguese nobility and the upper classes.
• Many names that are etymologically related to Maria are also used. The most common is the name Mariana, a contraction of Maria and Ana.

For Further Reading

• • Portugal - Names, Personal
  • Portugal - Names, Personal - Dictionaries

References

In Brazil many surnames of Portuguese origin were given to the native Indians and Negro children when the priests baptized them. Others were simply baptized João, José, Maria, and so forth, and later descendants obtained a surname.

Another distinctive practice of the Portuguese naming system was the double and compound surnames. The person would be known by his maternal and paternal surnames. Compound surnames (sobrenomes compostos) can be found with or without a preposition (de, do, da, d’). Examples are Maria Ferreira de Castilhos, José João Costa Silva, and Francisco Rosa e Silva. Generally the last surname came from the father.

While most present-day names are taken from parents’ surnames, historically the surnames might be those of the more prominent family and even those from grandparents. During the first half of the 1800s a male child often took the surname of his father, while a female child took the surname of her mother.

In many cases a surname was arbitrarily adopted. Family grudges, popular surnames, names related to a location, the desire to avoid undesirable family connections, or the desire to express appreciation or sympathy to someone resulted in changes of a surname. These changes create serious difficulties for genealogists.

Historically, before the last 150 years, women did not attach their husband’s surname. Now a women who married a Martins would attach the married surname (sobrenome de casado) de Martins to her first single (paternal) surname (sobrenome de solteira). And when she was widowed she would become Viúva (widow) de Martins. In Brazil "de" was used with surnames as a preposition (of or from) and not as an indicator of nobility.

In Brazil, until recently the surname was seldom passed on to the children in a way that it is helpful to link families. Last names also varied from one record to another. Often a person’s full name had a half dozen different variations. This is especially true for women. A man could be Joaquim da Silva Paranhos in one record and Joaquim José Paranhos, Joaquim José da Silva, and Joaquim José da Silva Paranhos in other documents. A woman could be listed variously as Maria Isabel da Silva, Maria da Silva Conceição, Maria Isabel, or Maria da Conceição da Silva. In addition, the name Conceição could be replaced by Encarnação, and an additional name Livramento or das Dores might be added, depending on the saint popular with the family or individual or on the desire of the recorder.

It is therefore sometimes necessary to give up the idea that the father’s last name is always a certain name. Instead, you might need to note all persons with the same first name to learn the variations within the records.

Another difficulty may be met in the transition of the name of a person from when he or she was enslaved to when he or she became a free person. For example a slave named Isabel Parda could become Maria Isabel da Costa after becoming free. This can be one of the first challenges in researching the genealogy of slave families in Brazil.

Additional information on names in Brazil can be found in:

• Barão de Vasconcelos. Archivo nobiliarchico brasileiro (Brazilian Archive of Nobility). Available Online.
• Mattos, Armando de. Manual de Genealogia Portuguesa (Manual of Portuguese Genealogy). Pôrto: Fernando Machado, 1943. (FHL book 946.9 D27ma; film 0896862 item 4)
• Távora, Luiz Gonzaga de Lancastre e. Dicionário das famílias portuguesas (Dictionary of Portuguese Families). Lisboa: Quetzal Editores, 1989. (FHL book 946.9 D4t) This is a register of more than 1,000 Portuguese surnames, with a discussion of their derivations.
• Wold, Lillian Ramos. Hispanic Surnames: History and Genealogy. Fullerton, Calif.: Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research, c1994. (FHL book 946 D4h)

Given Names

In Brazil many given names are derived from Biblical names such as José (Joseph), saint names such as Roque (Roch), or Old Portuguese given names such as Soromenho. Some Portuguese people used compound given names (nomes compostos) such as Maria das Dores and Isabel da Conceição.

When baptized, children were usually given one or more given names. One of these might have been the name of the saint of the day of baptism. The first name or baptismal name may not have been used in the child’s life. In Brazil the child was usually called by the second or third name given at baptism; this is especially true if the first name was Maria or José.

Online Resources

• http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft3s2005k7&chunk.id=d0e2465&toc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=eschol Family, Frontier, and the Colonization of the Americas

Family History Library (FHL); now called, FamilySearch Library (FSL)