Naming Traditions (Part I)

by Doug da Rocha Holmes
Copyright © 1995



To the unfamiliar, the traditional ways for Portuguese to use personal and family names can be quite baffling. This is especially so with family names, as will be seen in part II of this article.

This data was obtained mostly from firsthand experience while looking through church parish records from the 16th century to the present. As I have learned, there are always exceptions to what is considered traditional and I cannot know about places or islands where I have not done research. Therefore, this article can be considered accurate for the islands of Pico and Terceira, in particular, and more or less accurate for other places where my research has not been so extensive.

GIVEN NAMES

When a child is baptized, the name listed in the parish record will be the same one used from then on. So, a Guilherme listed in the baptisms book of a village will continue to use that name, with the addition of possibly another personal name or just a surname. This seemingly obvious statement is mentioned because when a second name is added later, one may wonder whether the second name is the one that appears in later records for the same person, such as marriage or as a godparent. If this Guilherme adds the name António and his father used the surname Machado, he may be known in future records as Guilherme António Machado. He won't be listed as António Machado, though he could be listed only as Guilherme António.

On the other hand, even though it is his full and real name, our Guilherme may not use any of those names at all. Guilherme is an expert whaler and everyone in his village knows him as Baleeiro because his crew caught the biggest whale ever seen in living memory there. This other name is known either as his "apelido" or "alcunha" (nickname). If you visit Guilherme's village and ask anyone where Guilherme António Machado lives, you're likely to get a lot of blank stares. But everyone knows that Guilherme Baleeiro lives in the little volcanic-stone house up the hill.

There is a distinction that must be made between the two words, apelido and alcunha. The dictionary lists both as "nickname" and apelido is more commonly used. However, apelido is also defined as "surname" and a surname and a nickname are quite different. Therefore, to be more clear, a nickname could be called alcunha in Portuguese, though one must realize more people use the word apelido than alcunha when they're talking about a nickname.

Tradition is that the first son will be named Manuel and the first daughter named Maria. While this is the general rule, it is commonly broken. Perhaps the name Rui is a traditional name in one family. In such a case, the first son might be named Rui. If the mother's name is Catarina, the first daughter might be given that name instead of Maria.

When one finds two children baptised with the same given name, it usually indicates the first one has died. I have never seen it otherwise for males, but for females, it is very common to have many living girls named Maria. They are distinguished by their second name given at a later date such as Maria Emilia, Maria Luisa or Maria Rosa. Possibly because of this tradition, one sees the parish records from about 1860 forward saying something like, "...was given the name Maria, the second with this name, daughter of ...". Some make the mistake when translating a baptism record such as, "...was given the name Lourenço, the first with this name,..." to mean Lourenço was the first child of this couple. Actually, he was simply the first one with that name.

Whether these multiple Marias were called by their second given names by family and friends may never be known, but in modern times, this can be known. For instance, I have cousins where several sisters use their second given name because their first names are all Maria. Maria is just a traditional given name for this family in the same way Germans may name every boy Johann but always call them by their second given name.

Similarly, one of my Silveira families from Pico had the tradition of using Francisco as the second given name for all the males. Five generations of ancestors and their children all had Francisco as the second name. There was only one exception and that was because Francisco was the first name! It turns out that it probably all started in honor of the oldest known ancestor of that line whose first name was Francisco. Inácio is also an extremely common second name.

The second son or daughter is often named after a godparent. And, as with all other countries where there are Catholics, it is common to name a child after the saint's day on which the child was born; the same tradition by which the island of Santa Maria was named.

Women started using religious names instead of a family name usually in the early 1700s. My first ancestor to use a religious name was born about 1675. This tradition continued until the middle 1800s when the priest would usually indicate her family name too. Until then, a woman may go through her whole life with never a church record referring to her family name. An Izabel may assume the religious name de Jesus later in life and from then on, she may only be known as Izabel de Jezus. On the other hand, she may later change her religious name to Santo António to honor that saint. So, she would then be known as Izabel de Santo Antonio. If that occurs, it can cause doubt as to the name of someone's ancestor. But I've concluded that it may simply be a name-change and both names should be noted by the genealogist. It is also possible the priest made a mistake in recording someone's name. It is not uncommon, especially with grandparent's names listed in baptism records.

I have included information about religious names in this part of the article because they should be considered given names, not family names.

Other examples of female religious names are: Joanna Maria do Coração de Jesus, Josefa do Espirito Santo, Mariana Narciza, Maria Caetana do Rozario, Luzia de Santa Ana, Roza dos Anjos, Maria da Resureição, Anna de Sao João, Maria de Santa Barbara, Ana de Nazaré, Maria de Sao Pedro, Luzia da Trindade, Maria do Carmo, Iria do Nascimento, Rosa da Ascenção, Maria Santa, Madalena de Santa Rosa, Barbara da Luz, Catarina do Sacramento, Teresa de São Francisco.

Some common names for females are Maria, Rosa, Joaquina, Madalena, Isabel, Francisca, Agueda, Anna, Antónia, Catarina, Barbara, Luzia, Teresa and Josefa. Less common ones are Apolonia, Filomena, Luisa, Emilia, Jacinta, Mariana, Beatris, Leonor, Cândida, Bernarda, Domingas, Susana, Ursula, Paula, Felipa, Rita, Leonarda, Branca, Clara, Vicencia, Delfina, Ines and Inácia. Uncommon names are Mécia, Caetana, Merencia, Marla, Angela, Rosiana, Rosalia, Violante, Elena, Gracia, Genoveva, Perpetua, Sebastiana, Augusta, Guilhermina, Vitória, Andreza, Angelica and Cecilia. Some examples of rare female names are Pulcheria, Quiteria, Colecta, Leocadia, Flávia, Babianna, Eufrasia, Fabianna, Hyacintha, Micaela, Mauricia, Custodia, Iria, Justina, Benedicta, Betina, Carlota, Ermelinda, Leontina, Merces, Juditte, Iseu and Escolastica.

Common male names are Manuel, José, João, António, Francisco, Domingos, Sebastião, Inácio and Joaquim. Some others less common are Pedro, Jacinto, Lazaro, Gonçalo, Mateus, Diogo, Jorge, Balthazar, Vicente, Estevão, Fernão, Fernando, Gaspar, Guilherme, Amaro, Roque,Luis, Rodrigo, Alexandre, Thomé, Miguel, Mathias, Paulo, Antao, Bartolomeu, Caetano, Gabriel, Gregorio and Jeronimo. Some uncommon names are André, Afonço, lvaro, Damaçio, Rui, Nuno, Vasco, Leonel, Bras, Melchior, Agostinho, Simão, Cândido, Martinho, Duarte, Aniceto, Bernardino, Bernardo, Silvestre, Bento, Xavier, Lino and Artur. Some rare male names are Apolonario, Panteleão, Garcia, Clemente, Constantino, Cosme, Jordao, Sotéro, Serafím, Silvano, Paschoal, Salvador, Marcelo, Albino, Ermelindo, Helvidio and Gomes.

Maria and Manuel are far and away the most common of these. But the frequency of these names varies by location and time period and many of the above names could be more or less common at different times. For instance, in Sao Roque do Pico in the 1600s, Agueda was one of the most popular names, but it became uncommon by the 1800s. In the same place, Joaquim was almost unknown until the 1800s when it became common.

But what may seem rare in one village may be common elsewhere, and this helps the researcher sometimes. For example, one of my ancestors from Terceira was named Roque. The name is seen on Terceira, but is not so common. On the otherhand, it is common in S o Roque do Pico. As it turned out, my Roque had moved to Terceira from S.Roque do Pico. I've seen this for the name Amaro, too. It is common in the village of Santo Amaro, Pico, but if found elsewhere, it could indicate where that person was born.

An example of a female name like this is Maria da Piedade (piety). She is quite possibly from Piedade, Pico. I have found that women may change their religious name after they move. In the parish of Nossa Senhora da Conceição, in the city of Angra, Terceira, I have seen many women native to Piedade using this name. Though I don't their original names, I do know that using the name Piedade when living in Piedade was uncommon. Using a name like Luisa da Conceição is common in all villages so would not indicate she was a native of Conceição parish in Angra.

As with other Latin names, it is fairly common to find males with feminine second names, and the reverse is true. A popular male name is José Maria. A female name is Maria José. Maria is almost exclusively the only feminine name used by males and José the name used by females, though others can be found. But it is far more common for males to use a feminine name than for females to use a masculine name.

Until the last few decades of the 1800s, most written records used the old spelling methods for names and other words.

Masculine name spelling variations: Manuel was Manoel; José was Jozé, Joze or Jozeph; Tomas was Thomas, Thomaz or Thomé; Rui was Ruy; Mateus / Matheus; Roque / Roche; Pedro / Pero; Jorge was George or Iorge; Diogo / Dioguo; Domingos / Dominguos; Fernao and Fernando were interchangable; Inácio / Ignacio; Sebastiao / Bastiao; Felipe / Phellipe; and Melchior and Belchior were interchangable; Joao was Joam or Ioam and must not be mistaken for an abbreviation for Joaquim; Gonçalo / Gonsallo; Jeronimo was Hieronymo or Geronimo; Pasqual / Paschoal; Vasco / Vasquo; Bartolomeu / Bertholomeu; Bras / Braz.

Some feminine names: Catarina was Catharina; Rosa was Roza; Beatris was Brites, Breatis or Beatrix; Margarida / Margaida; Madalena was Magdalena or Magdanella; Isabel / Izabel; Josefa was Jozefa or Jozepha; Agueda was Agada or sometimes Agda (probably an abbreviation); Barbara / Barbora; Jacinta / Jacintha; Getrudes / Gertrudes; Apolonia / Pelonia.

In recent times, due to the influence of other cultures, some people fancy names that are definately not Portuguese at all. I know a person in Angra who named his three daughters Diana, Helga and Telma.

My first trip to Portugal also revealed a personal mystery as to why I had an uncle everyone called "Babe". My cousins there also call the youngest in the family "Bebé" and it appears to be the tradition in many families.

Names that fall under the category of diminutive names are "Chico" from Francisco and "Zé" from José.

All Portuguese church records are written in complete sentences, as opposed to the names and dates being listed in columns as in many other countries. This could lead to very long written entries and use a lot of precious and expensive paper. Apparently, this is the reason why most names and words are always abbreviated. Manoel will be listed as Mel; Maria as Ma; Joze as Je; Catharina as Cna or Ca, Pedro as Po, etc. It takes a while to recognize them quickly and sometimes a variation will cause trouble. Be careful to note the difference between the names Luzia and Luiza, and for Matheus as opposed to Mathias. Emilia and Amélia are also two distinct names.

[Originally appeared in the September 1995 issue of O Progresso, the newsletter of the Portuguese Historical & Cultural Society in Sacramento, CA.] Doug da Rocha Holmes, 2701 Corabel Ln. #34, Sacramento, CA, 95821, 916-489-9599 Or email: Rocha@dholmes.com

Sources: Please contact author for source information. Doug da Rocha Holmes, Email: Rocha@dholmes.com. Website: http://www.dholmes.com

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