When I was a bright-eyed self-centered student in Brazil, I fancied being a Latinist. For that reason, I was attracted to people of like mind, which in the backlands meant the oddball well-read priest, who kept up with his Cicero and Suetonius. And who was specially appreciated when he didn't try to rope me back into the Catholic herd. .
It so happened that I took a vacation (from smoking and boozing) in an obscure little fruit-growing town in central São Paulo State, where Aunt Tina, one of my mother's sister, was a schoolteacher and a model mother.
Her husband was a CPA who worked hard at helping local small farmers turned industrialists to pay as little as possible in taxes without actually cheating. Since his clients were mostly immigrant Turks — a catchall denomination for Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinian, Jordanian and other former subjects of the former Ottoman Empire — his job was to explain in every day words the meaning and implications of the convoluted Brazilian tax code ponderous articles. A task Uncle Theo had made considerably easier and doubtlessly profitable as he knew how by cultivating the friendship and the camaraderie of the Federal IRS man in town.
Evenings, Uncle Theo ran in his dilapidated former parlor a school for budding accountants, thus ensuring batch after batch of bookkeepers capable of serving the needs of the newer immigrants, collectively known as Hungareses, an easy handle for anybody coming from Central and Eastern Europe: Bulgarians, Czechs, Estonians, Letts, Lithuanians, quite a few Poles and a smattering of real Hungarians (whose nationality, in Italian, was Ungheresi). Do not ask me why in the interior of Brazil an Italian term had come to apply to hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans.
This was before television, when the evening and weekend entertainment consisted mostly of card games in the dismally decorated "men's club" while the then called "weaker sex" amused themselves with many baby showers, savory gossip, and occasional evening rezas and novenas in the imposing matriz, the main Roman Catholic church serving a wide area of fruit orchards and vines of maracujá (passionfruit).
The only movie house, owned by a tight-fisted "Turk," had but a single projector. A circumstance that afforded intermissions every so many minutes for trips to the mictórios (urinals, toilets) or, in the raw unheated winter, quick gulps of passable pinga (sugar-cane firewater) or quentão (a hot and body-warming mixture of pinga, lots of sugar, grated ginger, and sticks of canela, or cinnamon. Having transformed himself into a kind of Calvinistic businessman, the erstwhile Muslim, seu (Mr.) Salim Arrabatache, kept under his roving eye the duration of the intermissions, always conditioned to the pace of the sales of edibles and potables. There was never much hurry to start the next reel of film.
The town was positively and definitely boring, my aunt and her husband busy the live-long day and I could weep with so much sleepiness. My personal savior was the kind and aging parish priest, Father Vieira, who was quite a scholar and longed to converse about literature, books in general, philosophy, the arts. And Latin. I soon became not only a daily visitor but a frequent lunch guest. And his young Portuguese wine, his vinho verde, was often a most rewarding addition. I also enjoyed going with Father Vieira on his walks around the town and to the church for his daily business.
On a given day he invited me to go to the matriz for a christening and I went along. The yet unnamed child was the daughter of a prosperous redneck couple who had driven from their farm bringing godfather and godmother with them in their truck.
"What name have you chosen for this baby?" the celebrant asked.
"Hemorrhoids, reverend."
The priest opened and closed his mouth a few times, disguising his embarrassment.
"Where did you find that name?" he asked, still swallowing air.
"In a magazine," said the father. "In an advertisement," the mother added. "Isn't beautiful?"
"Well...it's quite...interesting," said Father Vieira.
I was dying to get into the act and help my friend out. So, sure that he would understand my high school French, I offered:
"In France, hemorrhoids are often called éméraudes, a less clinical and gentle euphemism," I pointed out. "Perhaps you might suggest the Portuguese name for emerald."
The curate winked at me and turned to the parents:
"Look. It's a pretty name, but it is foreign. It will create spelling problems. Can you spell it?"
At that time, between the two World Wars, the Portuguese language was still loaded with the deadwood of double consonants, th's and ph's and unaspirated useless aitches peppered all over the place.
There is no aspirated h in the language, either.
The couple confessed sheepishly that they were unsure of the spelling.
"Then, why not use Esmeralda, the Portuguese version of the name? It's equally pretty, it's the name of a lovely green precious stone, and anybody can spell it. It's very nice."
The baby was baptized Esmeralda and I congratulated myself on my good deed. Many years later, however, I began to wonder whether anybody had a right to interfere with parents bent on giving their offspring names that were less humdrum than most. So, from being childishly judgmental and righteous, I grew to accept a tradition that had its roots in folklore and history. And I got overjoyed when a particularly felicitous name cropped up.
Such was the case, for instance, of Miroel Silveira, one of my best friends in Brazil. His name, not found in any directory, religious almanac, dictionary or encyclopedia, resulted from the juxtaposition of the last two letters of his mother's name, Isabel, and the last two syllables of his father's name — Valdomiro. Valdomiro Silveira was a well known São Paulo poet and writer and, for a while, State Secretary of Education. The resulting name was a quaint but harmonious creation that gained recognition as Miroel grew to become an award-winning musician, writer of stories and plays, translator, and college professor. I know of at least another Miroel, named after the original one, who died a few years ago.
Miroel was the tamest display of what used to be a Brazilian national hobby. The same formula was frequently replicated in names such as Geisa (George & Louisa), Julcir (Julio and Cir instead of Cri of Cristina), Etelson (Etelvina & Nelson), Odolina (Odorico & Carolina), Raymilson (Raynha & Vilson), Helenice (Hélio & Beatrice). Also gracing the records of civil registries are other concoctions of names, not necessarily formed of fragments of monikers: Absidíola, Aldomiro, Altifício, Amordeiza, Aldomiro, Alvodia, Amordeiza, Anabela, Himalaia, Helespôntico, Ilhazul, Itocravo, Migdônio, Milamores, and so forth.
As President Woodrow Wilson of the US reached the height of his popularity when I was born in 1918, I got his name. Fortunately for me, as more and more boys were named Wilson in Brazil, I was saved a lot of ribbing from my peers, for my gringo name.
From time to time, the Brazilian Census Bureau (IBGE) contributed to the nominal oddities by putting out press releases listing some of the strange names its enumerators had come across. Unwittingly, the IBGE fed a fierce competition among parents.
Heroes both historical and fictional were frequent sources: Radamés (from Verdi's opera Aida), Atahualpa (an Inca Emperor who succumbed to the conquistadores), Praxiteles (famous Greek sculptor), Desdêmona (the victim in Shakespeare's Othello), Tamerlão (a strange corrupted form of Timur the Lame), Kosciusko and Pulaski (Polish heroes), Kossuth (Hungarian hero), Ciro (Persian hero), Ben-Hur, Gutembergue (Brazilian version of the name of the inventor of movable type), Aníbal (after the Carthaginian general Hannibal), Aristóteles, Aristides, Édison, Loreley, Aristarco (Aristarch, Athenian literary critic), Arqui-medes (Archimedes), Roosevelt (as a first name), Lullaby, Júlios César galore, Guilherme Tell, Dartanhã (d'Artagnan of Dumas), Garibaldi (Italian hero), Jasão (the Argonaut) e Circe (from the same Greek legend), Xantipa, Natacha or Natasha, Kátia, and a flood of names beginning with W (sometimes pronounced in the German way as V, such as Válter, Valquíria), Y. X, and Z.
Autochthonous appellations also have had their days of glory: Bartira or Bartyra, Guaraciaba, Iracema, Tupinambá, Goitacaz, Pery and Cycy (main characters of the opera Il Guarany by A. Carlos Gomes), Y-Juca-Pirama, Tupac Amaru, Sucupira, Ararigbóia, Jacy, Ubiratan, Jupira, Ararimã, and hundreds of others.
With the spread of American moving pictures, a new harvest of names took place. Often mispronounced and/or spelled, they were slowly incorporated into the tradition of out-of-the-ordinary names and are now as common as in America. Such is the case with William and Wallace or Wally, frequently morphed into Valace and Váli, Darcy (pro-nounced Dahrcy or Dahrseeh), Douglas (pronounced Dooglas). Shirley got into the language in various forms: Sirley, Cirley, Cirlei, Xírlei, Çirlêi , and usually is pronounced Cirlay. None has yet achieved the wide popularity of Maria (generally with another name tacked on, Luisa, Madalena, Lena, Helena, Lurdes, Conceição, Graça, Angélica, Lúcia.
Biblical enthusiasts have chosen many Hebrew names: Débora, Sulamita, Jonatã, Josafá, Hannah, Myriam, sometimes written and pronounced Miriã, stressing the last syllable. For a while, the fad was for Russian names: Ivan, Igor, Sônia, Anya, Lara, Larissa, a few Raíssas, Tatianas, as well as surnames: Lenine (French spelling of Lenin), even Karamazov, Timoshenko, Lermontov, Dostoyevsky, Strogoff (a Jules Verne hero).
Including a few unfortunates whose parents' revolutionary zeal branded them as Stalin. However, although a legal name change is one of the most difficult things to obtain in Brazil, several Stalins have quietly become Estêvão (Steve), as the authorities looked the other way. France and Germany weighed in much more lightly with Odette, Brigitte, Annelise, Willy, Franz, Fritz, Wagner, Ariane, Heloise, Gertrudis, Edviges, Isolda and Parsifal, Liselotte, Yvelise, Eliane, Etienne, Blaise, Dieudonné, Rabelais, Wotan, Goethe, Mozart, Beethoven, Bismarck, Foch, Joffre, etc, etc.
Spanish names are so similar to Portuguese ones that most Brazilians think that Carmen, for instance, is a native. Actually, the home variety is Carmo (as in Maria do). Originally both versions come from Latin and mean "song" like Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, Bavarian Songs.["Carmina" is the Latin plural of "Carmen".] That notwithstanding, a few Spanish names have seeped in, often with a slight modification, like the nickname Dardo, for Eduardo. In fact, the traditional Brazilian equivalents are Duda or Dudu. Pepes (for José) are few, while the Brazilian nickname for José — Juca — is used by legions. For Francisco, who in Spanish are dubbed Pancho or Paco, Brazilians have Chico. And there are quite a few Hermanos and Elmanos.
Abstruse variations, considered "high class", are rather common names with Latin endings, such as Josephus, Paulus, Claudius, Terentius, Johannes (and its female version Johanna). For some unknown reason, Brazilians love names with the initial H. The eighth letter of the alphabet used to add "a touch of class" to names not originally containing an H. Consequently, in Brazil you may meet people called Halda, Helda, Holga, Hela, Hula, Hóscar, Hanôver, Hierônimus, Hebe, Horacina, Horalinda, Horamor.
Even my brother Thersio (who should be called Tércio as he was the Tertius boy in the family) had his official handle doctored up by father. The "explanation", dad said, was that he had made "two small corrections: sticking an H in it, and changing the C into S. This way, said father, he became the pair of our own sister Theresa (the two other pairs being Neusa-Newton and Wilson-Washington, the eldest and the youngest).
Much more strange than any of this imitations and small surgeries are the cases of an ingenious family in which each daughter or son has a number in French as his/her name: Un, Deux, Trois, Quatre, etc up to Dix-Sept and Dix-Huit. The only exception is a male called Eleven. Why Eleven? Because this number is called the same in French and in Portuguese, Onze, so it couldn't possibly do. Another laurel in the same line was earned by the family who engineered the name Um-Dois-Três de Oliveira Quatro (One-Two-Three of Oliveira Four).
All this may appear interesting to readers who never bothered with other people's names. The fact is that, at the moment, Brazilian are losing by a whole mile to the Americans, who lately have broken the mold of John, Joe, George, Robert, Michael, Matthew, Ashley, Don and Ron. Or Ann, Catherine, Kathleen, Nancy, Patricia, Jean, Joan, June, and Janet.
According to the Florida Department of Vital Statistics, for instance, there live in the State real people, citizens, veterans, voters and other registered individuals known legally as Belle Peppers, Sweet Tart, Cherry Daiquiri Sour, Silver Ware, Jr., Bonnie Bowlegs, Bright Berger Butz, Mac Aroni, Ima Hog, Waldorf Astoria Johnson, Lemon Ham, Candy Box, Okla Homa Mills, Cherry Pye, Cigar Stubbs, to say nothing of twin pairs named D.C. & A.C., Pete & Repeat, Beginning & End, Nip & Tuck.
Can any oddly named Brazilian family hold a candle to the above Floridians? If you thing they can, and are able to prove it with documented facts, tell it to Ron Word (a real life reporter of the Tampa Tribune). Or contact Prof. Albert Mehrabian, of UCLA, the author of The Name Game.
Mário Souto Maior, 76, considered the greatest Brazilian folklorist alive, has just released the 4th edition of Nomes Próprios Pouco Comuns (Unusual Proper Names). The book, published by Edições Bagaço from Pernambuco state, lists more than 2,000 odd names. "Everything I publish is documented," says Souto Maior. Some of the jewels:
Barrigudinha Seleida - Pot-bellied Seleida
José Amâncio e Seus Trinta e Nove - José Amâncio and His Thirty Nines
José Casou de Calças Curtas - José Married in Short Pants
Magnésia Bisurada - Sodium Bicarbonate
Naida Navinda Navolta Pereira - Going, Coming, Back Pereira
Napoleão Sem Medo e Sem Mácula - Fearless and Sinless Napoleon
Otávio Bundasseca - Dry Buttock Otávio
If you want to talk to the author or buy his book, write to:
Mário Souto Maior
Av. Getúlio Vargas, 963
53030-010 - Olinda, Pernambuco
Brazil