Talk:Portuguese name

Merge and rename

There's a lot more about Portuguese naming customs at Iberian naming customs. However, I've also noticed, looking at the page personal name, that most nationalities have a page of their own for their naming conventions. I don't see why Portuguese names should be lumped together with Spanish and Catalan names, given that there are significant differences between the two groups. So, I'm proposing that what is currently at Iberian naming customs about Portuguese be moved here, and that this article be renamed "Portuguese names". Any objections...? FilipeS 20:43, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

No. I agree. Of course Iberian naming customs should be renamed Spanish naming customs! I also think that Portuguese naming customs is better than Portuguese surnames. The Ogre 20:50, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure about renaming Iberian naming customs "Spanish naming customs". There's some stuff about Catalan names in there, too. I would just move the bits on Portuguese here. If Catalan speakers wish to move to an article of their own, they can propose the split themselves. FilipeS 20:55, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I have a problem with that. Iberian means the whole Iberian Peninsula, including Spain and Portugal. If the article Iberian naming customs only comprises Spain, then it should be named Naming customs in Spain! The Ogre 01:14, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, good point. Which would mean eventually deleting Iberian naming customs... FilipeS 10:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Well... not deleting, just renaming, that is to say, using the Move option. The Ogre 23:25, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Merger completed. FilipeS 23:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Other discussions

Previous discussions can be found at Talk: Spanish naming customs. FilipeS 23:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Toponymics

The use of "de/da/do" is very often used to implicate toponymics, ie. places where those people come from, and was also used, once in a while, for the nobility, although in Portugal that usage was not very popular. Example: João, Duque de Bragança (Duke of Braganza) and with the last name later becoming a family name like in Duarte de Bragança, showing an affiliation with the Bragança family but without having a formal nobility title.

Several people claim to belong to families that "owned" cities or rivers because of the particle de, but it's often very hard to trace that ancestry back to a noble that actually had a title to the land.

To confuse matters worse, in 1911, after the Republic was established, and during the first Republican census, thousands upon thousands of people simply didn't have a last name, and were given the name of the place where they were born, e.g. "João de Sintra" or "José de Lisboa", without having any relationship to any ancestral noble family who might have had a title to that land.

Gwyneth Llewelyn 19:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Ofensive

I find ofensive that it says people give four or five names to their kids as an expression of snobbism. Portuguese people know that's not true, what happens is that many families go by two names (like Pacheco Pereira, or Espirito Santo), so there's nothing wrong with someone being called, lets say, Ana Espirito Santo Pacheco Pereira. I also have five names and I am no snob. 77.54.155.226 (talk) 03:06, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

"Pacheco Pereira" and "Espírito Santo" do not fall in the same category. Pacheco Pereira is a composite surname, resulting from the juxtaposition of two distinct family names sometime in the past, which was then transmitted as pseudo-single family name to the subsequent generations; the same is true for Freitas do Amaral, Cavaco Silva, and Câmara Pereira (just to name a few famous ones). By contrast, Espírito Santo is a single family name, strictu sensu, as it corresponds to a single concept (Holy Spirit): we can go back in time how many centuries we want, but we won't find a generation whose parents were someone with the surname "Espírito" and someone with the surname "Santo"... (but we would find a "Pacheco" and a "Pereira" having a child whose family names were "Pacheco Pereira"); the same is true for such names as Castelo Branco (a toponym), Corte Real, Mil-Homens, Seis-Dedos, Santa Rita, etc. Gazilion (talk) 15:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Note, however, that there is the possibility that a woman whose family name is Castelo and a man whose family name is Branco have a child whose combined family names create the appearance of a single, two-word family name... In the absence of any information about his/her parents, everybody would consider "Castelo Branco" as a single logical unit, and would never call that person "XPTO Branco", but rather "XPTO Castelo Branco" Gazilion (talk) 15:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It is definitely pretension, not just snobbery. Normal married Portuguese parents transmit only the father's surname. Adding the mother's surname took place only if she was a noblewoman who had no brothers.

Dubious claims

When someone's surname was unknown, not verifiable or considered unpronounceable in Portuguese language, his or her surname was usually registered as "da Costa" when living near the sea coast or "da Silva" (from the forest) if lived inland. The surname "dos Santos" (from the saints) was given to orphan children. This explains why these names (da Costa, da Silva, dos Santos) are so common

Are they that common? Where are the numbers? Is there anything at all to "explain"?

— I don't think it has necessarily to do with the name being "not verifiable or considered unpronounceable". For most of Portuguese history there were no such thing as family names that passed from a generation to the next (at least for commoners). Families were then often known or referred to by their location in the village: near the main square (Largo), near a tank (Tanque), near the threshing-floor (Eira), near the well (Poço), near the creek (Ribeiro), on some extreme (Fundo, Cimo), etc. When the locative denoted something that could be owned (Azenha, Moinho, Eira, Tanque, Poço), it could denote ownership by that family (and not just proximity). Gazilion (talk) 16:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[...] and why, although the high degree of miscegenation in Brazil and the Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa and Asia, between Portuguese, African, Asian or local Indigenous people, Portuguese names are so common.

Or maybe the Africans simply didn't use family names! FilipeS (talk) 21:56, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

African slaves were deprived of their own culture by forced christianization. After a couple of generations they were uprooted and forgot their languages and all. So they were just named at the will of their patrons. Indians did not use "names" in the sense that we do, but only nicknames which described their appearance or their deeds. Such nicknames tended to change along their lives.jggouvea (talk) 04:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I added some more information about it. --Tonyjeff (talk) 14:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The idea that people were given the name "Costa" or "Silva" if no other means of identifying them was readily available is not true with regard to Portugal. It may have been a common practice in Brazil or perhaps other colonies of the mother country, but, if it happened at all, it was very rare in continental Portugal. The Church was careful to enter names and genealogies. It was principally responsible for doing so over a period of centuries. Names of fathers, mothers, grandparents, godparents and witnesses who gave testimony under oath were usually recorded. The incidence of illegitimacy was below the average for Europe (less than 2%) and in those instances the child was usually given the mother's surname. After nearly 30 years of research in Portugal and having reviewed over 20,000 individual entries from 1540 to 1854, I feel qualified to make that statement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grandcross (talk • contribs) 02:57, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

The particle 'de'

I am not really pretty sure of that. Here in Brazil it is usually considered part of the name (da Silva, for instance), but the particle is not often cited due to a matter of preference. It is similar to von or van in Germanic names. --Tonyjeff (talk) 14:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

In Portugal it is not considered part of the name, and that's for sure... It's just a matter of changing the text to make it clear that that rule only applies in Portugal. Gazilion (talk) 15:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I would not talk here about whatever goes on in "Germanic names". In fact, it's different in Dutch (van, de) compared to German (von). Better go on discussing about Portuguese names! BTW, this wikipage is very good! 62.203.122.205 (talk) 15:26, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Naming controversy

• When producing alphabetised lists of Portuguese names, the last family name is chosen as the key. The conjunctives and affixes preceding or following it, such as "da" and "Filho", should not be used.

So what about, for example, Vavá, who seems to have two given names and a Neto suffix? He didn't have any surname...!?!? --necronudist (talk) 21:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Nevertheless, the vast majority of Portuguese language names do have at least one family name. FilipeS (talk) 21:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Well... things in Brazil are sort of hazy, nevertheless FilipeS is right, and, furthermore, Vavá's real name Edvaldo Izidio Neto says nothing about is surname, it could be Izidio (Neto meaning granson - but then it should not be capitalized) or it could be Neto (yes, it's a family name). The Ogre (talk) 09:01, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

So Filho, Neto, Sobrinho, Junior, etc aren't ALWAYS suffixes, and there's no way to know if they're suffixes, than asking the person...? Kinda weird... --necronudist (talk) 09:38, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes... life is weird! The Ogre (talk) 10:18, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks :) --necronudist (talk) 10:58, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, maybe Vavá´s surname is Neto which is also an old surname, orginally Italian. Most families use the old form with double -t- (Netto). So, there are family names like Netto de Araújo or Neto de Castro. Or the other side, I never knew someone who use Filho, Junior or Sobrinho as a surname. --Quissamã (talk) 18:09, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Quissamã...! This lack of rules in Portuguese naming is really a mess... --necronudist (talk) 08:53, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Sobrinho is an old family name , known at least since the 13th century (one can find a 1285 reference to a Martim Sobrinho living in Minho, a kin of the priest of Orense, Pedro Sobrinho, which may point to a Galician origin for the name). Now, regarding Filho or Júnior, I also never heard of them as surnames. The Ogre (talk) 14:56, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Hyphens

I live in Portugal, and I have a friend whose last surname is Beja-da-Costa. He claims that this only one surname connected by hyphens, and he gets mad when he is called formally just Costa (we never call him da Costa, since that is uncommon around here; we unformally call him simply Beja). I'm posting this because I haven't found anything in the article about it, and I don't know if it would be useful. --Midasminus (talk) 15:21, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll leave you this clarification just for the record and for future readers. On this very page, just a few months before your considerations, someone mentioned two names with hyphens: Mil-homens and Seis-dedos. There's a further Castel-Branco, Ponta-garça, Corte-Real, Vilas-boas, Pé-curto... I also had someone who claimed his family claimed his surname Formigo was unique to his family, even though there are so many people on Facebook with the name. All these people thinking that they have unique names can't make up false believes and need to do some basic search instead. 82.154.197.176 (talk) 18:36, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Portuguese spelling...

I think the use of y-i/í (e.g.: Gylmar-Gilmar) and z-s (e.g.: Luiz-Luís) deserve a chapter... --necronudist (talk) 20:11, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and w-v too (e.g.: Waldir-Valdir)... --necronudist (talk) 20:36, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Removing my contributions

Please, I don't want to contribute to Wikipedia. This is not serious, and I don't want to be associated with it; people might think I'm not serious either. Ninguém (talk) 11:15, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Plus, all those contributions were unsourced... Ninguém (talk) 11:15, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Women and married names

The article states that the custom of changing your last name has disappeared - this may be true in Portugal, but in Brazil it is still widely in practice (can't find any statistics on that, though :-( ) Chester br (talk) 13:21, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more with you, Chester! In Brazil we still do it a lot! Crespus2006 (talk) 19:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

It's not true anywhere. This unsourced claim has no basis for inclusion and should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.22.190.252 (talk) 15:29, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

How are names collated?

Assuming that only two surnames are kept (i know u can have 4), how are they selected? each parent has two surnames (a maternal followed by paternal surname). Will the child take the mother's paternal surname followed by the father's paternal surname? ie each parent's maternal surname will be dropped out? e.g. mother = maria xavier dos santos, father = jose veloso almeida: child = antonio dos santos almeida? In addition, what happens when one parent doesn't have a portuguese name, e.g. smith? Utopial (talk) 18:48, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The most accepted norm is that the each parent passes their last surname - most commonly the paternal one -, so that the child will have, as you guessed, mother's paternal surname + father's paternal surname. The order of the surnames could also, of course, be reversed ('António Almeida dos Santos'). Moreover, it isn't at all unusual for one or both of the parents to pass on two last names, or even the middle (maternal) surnames instead. If this child were to have only two last names, he could have some eight different surname combinations, depending of the parents preference! Foreign or exotic surnames are widely accepted and passed on by the same rules any Portuguese surname would, and they aren't at all uncommon (see Alexandre O'Neill or Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen). Funny enough, these surnames are more likely to get transmitted through the generations because people favour unusual names over common ones. I imagine Mr João Smith Silva would very much prefer to use the Smith surname in his daily life and pass it on to his children. 188.81.192.231 (talk) 05:27, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's basically it! However regarding the "exotic names" issue, I don't think one can make such a big generalization... I personally know many instances were a foreign name was dropped. On the whole, today, there aren't that many rules... I mean, everyone has to have at least a first name and a family name. Regarding the family name or names, the general tendency is to receive 1 to 2 names from each parent (generally mother's paternal surname + father's paternal surname, as said above), but a huge number of other possibilities occur, such as interpolated mother's and father's names, just one of the parents surnames, etc. Also, all of this refers to what happens in the state registry, since catholic baptismal procedures are not necessarily the same (one can have more first names or family names, I know of someone called "Teresa" in her identity card, but put down as "Teresa do Menino Jesus" in her baptismal record, another known case is that of some children of the aristocracy, who in the batismal records may ended having as much as 4 or 5 first names and a huge number of surnames). And of course all this is complexified with compound names and particles (such as "de"). In state records, take someone born of "João Luís Mão-de-Vaca de Santa Rita Possidónio Vinagre" and "Joana Luísa Drumond de Bettencourt e Teixeira de Vasconcelos" - the following cases are possible:

• Demétrio Quintino de Vasconcelos Vinagre
• Demétrio Quintino Teixeira de Vasconcelos Possidónio Vinagre
• Demétrio Quintino Vinagre de Vasconcelos
• Demétrio Quintino Possidónio Vinagre e Teixeira de Vasconcelos
• Demétrio Quintino Teixeira Vinagre Possidónio de Vasconcelos
• Demétrio Quintino Vinagre
• Demétrio Quintino Possidónio
• Demétrio Quintino Teixeira
• Demétrio Quintino Vasconcelos
• Demétrio Quintino Mão-de-Vaca de Santa Rita
• Demétrio Quintino Drumond de Bettencourt
• Demétrio Quintino Mão-de-Vaca
• Demétrio Quintino Santa Rita
• Demétrio Quintino Drumond
• Demétrio Quintino Bettencourt
• Demétrio Quintino Mão-de-Vaca de Santa Rita de Vasconcelos
• Demétrio Quintino Bettencourt de Vasconcelos
• Demétrio Quintino Drumond de Vasconcelos
• Demétrio Quintino Mão-de-Vaca Vinagre
• Demétrio Quintino Possidónio Teixeira
• Etc...

As you see number of permutations is imense! Creativity has an open filed, although most people go for the 1st two in the example above. BTW thanks for the tip about my talk page. Cheers!! The Ogre (talk) 13:37, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

No worries. Thanks for the feedback. One thing I've noticed is that a lot of the 'surnames' look very much like a first name - e.g. Xavier. This of course happens in English too, e.g. England's goalie David James. I'm not sure how these surnames have evolved in either culture.Utopial (talk) 02:58, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Nelson is not a "non-Portuguese given name in Brazil"

I removed the name Nelson from the list of "non-Portuguese given names in Brazil", because the name Nelson or Nélson is included in the list of names that people from Portugal can name their children[1]. For those who do not know that, in Portugal the parents must name their children with a name included in a list of allowed names. Nelson or Nélson is included in that list.

The name Nelson or Nélson arrived in Brazil with the Portuguese immigrants, unlike the other names listed in the article, like Wagner, Mozart, Donizetti, Lamartine, Danton, etc, which are in fact names that did not arrive in Brazil via Portugal. Then, Nelson is not a "non-Portuguese name" since it came from Portugal and it is widely used in Portugal, even though its origin seem to be English. But it is not an exception, since virtually all the names in Portuguese are of foreign origin, mostly from Latin and others languages, like the most common name "Maria" is from Hebrew Miryam. Nelson, like Maria or any other name in the list are "Portuguese names", despite the foreign origin of virtually all the names in Portuguese.

By the way, I don't need to claim any remote "colonial Portuguese ancestry" to know enough about Portugal. On the other hand, there are people who seem to be so proud of their remote Portuguese ancestry but know nothing about Portugal. What a shame. Opinoso (talk) 01:26, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

"Nelson" is an English name, which entered the Portuguese language as homage to Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, of Trafalgar fame. Maybe it was imported to Portugal before Brazilian Independence. It is unlikely; Nelson's carreer dates of the late XVIII Century, and his name became famous for his victories in the Napoleonic Wars - but it is a possibility. However, the origin of the name is clearly English, and the rationale behind it is the same as that of the other names (Danton, Lamartine, Wilson, Lenin, Anderson) in the article - homage to someone perceived as a great man. Ninguém (talk) 15:22, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Surname Gurjão

Gurjao is also a Brazilian surname. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.88.73.181 (talk) 16:02, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

It is spelled Gurjão. Do you mean Brazilian as opposed to Portuguese, or just that it is common in Brazil, although being of Portuguese origin? Ninguém (talk) 16:39, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

In fact, if it is the Portuguese language surname, it is most often spelled Gorjão. See here. The Ogre (talk) 17:32, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I mean the surname spelled Gurjão. But according to this website (http://www.geneall.net/P/forum_msg.php?id=181576&fview=e) it is not of Portuguese origin, though it dates back to colonial times in Brazil. So what is the origin and meaning of this surname?

Adoption of a surname through marriage

About men adopting the wife's name is said: «This custom has been fading since the 1970s and nowadays it is rarely found[citation needed], due to the cumbersome need to update registries, documents, etc., after the name change and back again in the event of divorce.» I have an opposite impression. Just recently watching a tv show about weddings I noticed that most of them were changing names, both husband and wife. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.252.3.239 (talk) 19:56, 3 July 2011 (UTC) I want to ask a questio related both to the article and to this specific talk page entry: why is the word "surname" used instead of the phrase "last name"? I mean, I often get confused because I think that by "surname" they are referring to what we call "nickname" in English because it shares a similitude with the word of that in Portuguese, "apelido" which one would think (in terms of Spanish-speaking countries) means "last name/surname", but it's not the case. The confusing word for me is "sobrenome" because I tend to confuse it with "apelido", as stated above.--Marceki111 (talk) 13:00, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

In Portugal "apelido" means, exactly, "last name" (my name is Miguel Jorge Madeira, and my "apelido" is "Madeira")--81.84.189.67 (talk) 22:44, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Pinto

Pinto (chick, i.e. gentle and kind). It is wrong. It has to do with painting, specially a red crescent moon on the shield in reference to moors killed in battle, during the Reconquista. Check Armorial Lusitano. Tonyjeff (talk) 14:42, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Inheritance.

I didn't find the aspect of inheritance covered in the article. Which surname do people transfer to their children - their own maternal (first) or paternal (second) surname? twitter.com/YOMALSIDOROFF (talk) 18:53, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Roman numerals

There's no legal prohibition in brazilian law for the pratice of Roman numerals, such as II, III, etc. for son, grandson, and great-grandson. See the Civil Code and the Law of Public Registries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amorim79 (talk • contribs) 03:51, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

rename to Lusophone name

to reflect better the scope in lusophone countries. Fgnievinski (talk) 13:15, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Grammar correction to the article

I corrected section 10.2 in the artcle, titled "Most common names in Portugal and Brazil", by adding the article "the" before the noun "newspaper" based on actual usage, because... don't we say in English "(to) read the newspaper"? The original section read "According to newspaper Público..." and the corrected section reads "According to the newspaper Público..." --Marce 12:19, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Strange assertion

"In Portugal, the custom of giving a child four last names is getting popular, since this way a child can have each of their grandparents' last names. In Portugal and Brazil, some people view this as a sign of snobbery, since it used to be the noble families who had a large number of surnames. (For instance, the Emperor Pedro I of Brazil (also known as Pedro IV of Portugal) (1798–1834) had the full name of Pedro de Alcântara Francisco Antônio João Carlos Xavier de Paula Miguel Rafael Joaquim José Gonzaga Pascoal Cipriano Serafim de Bragança e Bourbon, and his son, the Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, had the full name of Pedro de Alcântara João Carlos Leopoldo Salvador Bibiano Francisco Xavier de Paula Leocádio Miguel Gabriel Rafael Gonzaga de Bragança e Bourbon)."

Surely most of those names are given names, not surnames ?Lathamibird (talk) 01:45, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

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The example of humongous length

Maria do Carmo Mão de Ferro e Cunha de Almeida Santa Rita Santos Abreu – is the placement of e alright? Shouldn't it come between maternal and paternal surnames, i.e. Mão do Ferro Cunha e de Almeida Santa Rita? The example could use delimiters (maybe pipes, put | like | so). Also, is the Spanish practice of putting de before husband's surname known? 195.187.108.4 (talk) 12:12, 25 April 2022 (UTC)