Naming Traditions (Part III): Surname Selection

by Doug da Rocha Holmes
Copyright © 1996



In this final part of the 3-part series on Portuguese naming traditions, we explore the methods Portuguese used for selecting which surnames to use.

One might say there is no rhyme or reason to how our ancestors decided upon their surname. But notice how I say the word "select."

Compound Surnames

Other cultures follow the rule where the father's surname is handed down. This is true for Portuguese. But it's also true the Portuguese carry on the name of the mother. Spanish do this. They use the father's surname first and the mother's surname second. In modern times, there is a definite method of surname selection. The haphazard methods of old are illegal and it is now predictable which names people will use.

Nowadays, the mother's surname is first and the father's is second. So, if João's father's surname is Gonçalves and his mother's is Pereira, he can use the name João Pereira Gonçalves. But notice that he can use that name; he doesn't have to. Instead, he can drop his mother's name and just use Gonçalves. But he can't use only his mother's surname unless perhaps his father is unknown.

And, of course, people can take legal actions to change their name to whatever they wish. And a woman will still change her name to that of her husband, but she doesn't have to. Many times, she will tack it onto the end of her own surname but use her original name professionally.

Anyone familiar with Portuguese names knows about the use of multiple surnames or compound names. My own name was originally "Rocha Homem" before Americanized. This surname was kept intact generation after generation ever since the late 1700s. Only my grandfather slightly changed it when he added his mother's Leal name to his own making it "Leal da Rocha Homem" following the modern methods. Prior to that, no maternal surnames were ever added to it. However, since "homem" means "man," all the sisters of my grandfather's generation dropped "Homem." And "Rocha" was apparently the more import of these surnames because friends referred to my grandfather as "Senhor Rocha."

Keeping compound surnames intact for many generations is not uncommon. Another of my surnames, Leal da Rosa, has been used without change since at least 1690. Some branches dropped one of these names and use only Leal today. Other branches use only Rosa now. But others still use the full name.

Since compound names have been used for hundreds of years and there are now actual rules people must follow, we have an interesting situation in modern times. I'll give my cousins in Madeira as an example. Francisco Rocha Homem married Maria Abreu Cardoso early this century. By that time, there was a standard method of surname selection and their children used both parents' compound names making their full surname "Abreu Cardoso Rocha Homem." Adding the usual two given names to the mix and it gets to be a bit much. But this is totally normal.

If one descends from a noble family, the compound names can be even longer because the collection of names keeps building with each generation as they honor their heritage. As an example we can end up with a lady from Lisboa named Madalena Luísa Sotto-Maior de Sousa Coutinho Ferreira Pinto Basto (1922-1994), daughter of Eduardo Luís de Sousa Coutinho Ferreira Pinto Basto and his wife Maria Madalena da Cunha Sotto-Maior. The only surname from the parents that didn't make the cut was Cunha.

But what about all the people who chose some surname seemingly out of a hat? Though there may seem to be no logical reason, there really is. But there are so many possible ways to choose a name that it can seem unpredictable, if not fickle.

To say it in a nutshell, people were able to choose a surname from any ancestor, whether paternal or maternal. And it wasn't limited to the parents' or grandparents' names. In fact, they didn't even have to use any surname. It is common to see someone from the 1700s and 1800s simply as Joaquim José or maybe José Ignacio. Because of the importance placed on one's alcunha (nickname), it is easy to see how it can replace the surname entirely. So, Joaquim José, known locally as "o bonito," may not bother with his real surname after a while.

The use of multiple surnames explains why brothers may use a different surname. An American encountering this would be baffled, but by learning the names of the parents and both sets of grandparents, it usually becomes clear. Perhaps the compound surname used in Portugal was Gonçalves d'Areia. If two brothers of that family moved to America, one may decide to use just Areia and maybe keep "G." as the middle initial. The other may want to use Gonçalves and just drop Areia. Even today, we see natives of Portugal using only the last surname and just an initial for the others.

Abandoned children have no way of knowing who their parents were. So, how does one explain the selection of their surnames? There are many possibilities. Perhaps the priest gave the name to the child. Maybe the surname of the adopting parents was used. It's a sad fact that there were so many abandoned children. And if one finds one as an ancestor, it's a dead end to research on that line.

Similarly, illegitimate children used surnames other than from their mother. So, how did they decide on them? Because of the church methods or policies, even when the father was known, he was usually not stated. But, I have discovered the father on many occasions by comparing other records and the surname is usually that of the father, if there was any question.

By Royal Decree

During the reign of King Manuel I (1495-1521), there were issued what became known as the "Ordenanças Manuelinas" which were rules for surname usage published by the King in about 1510. They were actually written by King João I (1385-1433) and his son, Duarte (king from 1433-1438) in the early 1400s and were put into use then but not until they were published by King Manuel were they more broadly used. Later there were the "Ordenanças Felipinas" in about 1600 which were based in the Ordenanças Manuelinas and slightly modified by King Felippe II of Spain when he gained control of Portugal in 1580.

These ordenanças stipulated that the inheritor of property must use the same surname as the former owner. If one were to study the use of names of noble families, one could see how this determined the surnames used. The genealogy book Nobiliario da Ilha Terceira is full of such examples and mentions the estates passing down generation after generation.

This leads us to another subject - that of landed estates, the morgado. The dictionary defines "morgado" as the "first-born son or heir to an owner of an entail" or the "entail" itself. An "entail" is an estate handed down to an heir.

As relayed to me by historian James Guill, the first morgado he ever ran across was from 1298. They were very common by 1400. And they were outlawed in 1863. A person would gather property which produced income and if income reached a certain amount, he could petition the king to have that property designated a morgado. A morgado could never be separated or merged with another property. It always stayed in tact as a whole.

To the genealogist, finding an ancestor who was a morgado is like finding gold. First of all, this meant that they owned lots of property and were of the noble class. This ensures there will be information written in local histories and books and enough genealogical information to connect with other notable ancestors.

If there were no male heirs, the property could be inherited by a daughter and this was common. Her husband may even change his name to her surname if he was "marrying up" in class.

A 20th century example of this comes from Vila do Porto, Santa Maria island, where a man named Gamboa married a Tavares. He was "marrying up" in stature and he later adopted his wife's Tavares name.

The chart (appearing in O Progresso but not here) shows four generations of a family and serves as an example of several things mentioned earlier. This example comes from São Roque do Pico, where I do so much research. ...The children of the last generation use four different surnames coming from parents and grandparents. The Pereira Leal name even comes from the maternal great-grandparents. When researching these families, sometimes the surname would be written such as "Pereira da Costa" and at other times as just "Pereira" or just "da Costa" all for the same person. The same thing happened for "Dias de Lima" - sometimes written just as "Dias." So, it is important to compare all records before making a final decision on what any given surname should be.

This article appeared originally in the March 1996 issue of O Progresso, the quarterly newsletter of the Portuguese Historical and Cultural Society. Copyright © 1996 by Doug da Rocha Holmes. Reprinted with the author's permission.

You can reach Doug at: Email: Rocha@dholmes.com. Website: http://www.dholmes.com

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