Dear Joao, Thanks for the clear explanation of some of the "old" names. I know that I have run across Gracia & Garcia being interchangable in Portugal. It's great to have some of the other names shown too.
Rosemarie ----- Original Message ----- From: Joao S. Lopes To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2010 12:10 PM Subject: [AZORES-Genealogy] Beware of trapping Portuguese names: useful tips For those that don't know Portuguese first names, and particularly, XV-XIX centuries names, I think it's useful to select some curiosities: Ventura = can be a female name (= "venture, happiness, fortune") or a male (short for Boaventura, Saint Bonaventura, a canonized Franciscan friar) Gracia = can be a female name (= "grace", from Latin Gratia, and sometimes synonym of Engracia, from "in gratia"), but also a male name, an older variation of Garcia (originally a common Iberic first name, turned into a patronymic surname). The same phonetic variation is found in pairs Barcelos/Bracelos, Curvelo/Cruvelo/Curuvelo/Coruvelo/Corvelo, Carvalho/Cravalho, Cardoso/Cradoso. Other possible variants: Rosario/Rosairo, Beatriz/Brites/Breitiz/Breatiz, -is, Iria/Hiria/Eiria/Hyria, Gomes/Guomes, Gaspar/Guaspar, Gabriel/Graviel/Garaviel/Grabiel. There's a lot of written variations of all names, without etymological explanation. We can found Ascensao/Ascençao/Assensao, the correct being Ascensao (with tilde). We can foun "sinco" instead of "cinco"; "ceis" instead of "seis"; "sento" instead of "cento"; Roxa/Rocha, Machado/Maxado. Sometimes we can found the variaton in the same register. I prefer to standardized all these names when put them into my database, to prevent a crazy difficulty in research. For example, Felipe can be with F or Ph; e or i; L or LL; i or y; P or PP = 2 x 2x 2x2x2 = 32 variants! JS Lopes Rio, Brasil ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Veja quais são os assuntos do momento no Yahoo! + Buscados: Top 10 - Celebridades - Música - Esportes -- To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. Follow the confirmation directions when they arrive. For more options, such as changing to List, Digest, Abridged, or No Mail (vacation) mode, log into your Google account and visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Azores. Click in the blue area on the right that says "Join this group" and it will take you to "Edit my membership." -- To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. Follow the confirmation directions when they arrive. For more options, such as changing to List, Digest, Abridged, or No Mail (vacation) mode, log into your Google account and visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Azores. Click in the blue area on the right that says "Join this group" and it will take you to "Edit my membership." To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.
