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: What's in a Name?
As their country industrializes, Brazilians seem to
be losing their touch and flair in following a long-standing and firmly
established national tradition: giving their children the craziest names
ever. Sometimes for historical, political or religious reasons, or to make
some kind of statement, or to show their imagination & creativity,
or — quite often — for the sheer hell of it
Wilson Velloso
Weird names
Mário Souto Maior
Av. Getúlio Vargas, 963
53030-010 - Olinda, Pernambuco
Brazil
