Mainly in XVIIIth century, women adopted religious surnames. There's no single 
rule, but many times these names refered to saint whose date was close to birth 
or baptism children's date. Children who was baptized close to Christmas 
received "do Nascimento"; children baptized in June, "de Santo Antonio", etc.

JS Lopes



Em Sexta-feira, 28 de Fevereiro de 2014 15:34, Ângela Loura 
<[email protected]> escreveu:
 
In some cases the women were named after their parish: a girl named Maria, born 
in the parish of Nossa Senhora da Assunção, would be Maria da Assunção.


And maybe in some cases it could be due to the expression used when people 
asked for the sex of the baby to a pregnant woman, being the answers "um ainda 
bem" ("good!", or thank goodness!") for a baby boy (meaning that it was an 
advantage for the lavoura's and hard work), or "um Deus o deu" ("given by God", 
or "God's will) for a baby girl (no hard work, no lavoura), and being a "Deus o 
deu", they would have a religious name. 
But that's just my theory. Anyone else heard about these expressions? :)



2014-02-28 14:12 GMT+00:00 Rodney Figueiredo <[email protected]>:

It was usually women showing their devotion to the Virgin Mary.  With so many 
women named Maria, these religious names helped distinguish them from one 
another.  It seems everyone wanted to show religious devotion.  These weren't 
necessarily surnames in the modern sense, but just how the women were known 
during those times.  In some cases, these became de-facto surnames found in 
modern families of Portuguese descent.  I believe that their parents chose the 
name most of the time, but I've also found some women would change their name 
over the course of their life so that it wasn't just Maria da Conceição, but 
sometimes also Maria de Jesus in other records.  
>
>
>On Friday, February 28, 2014 6:21:14 AM UTC-5, carmen furtado wrote:
>Why do just women have names with "da Conceição," "de Jesús," "do Coração," 
>etc.?
>> 
>>I noticed that these names were not on their baptismal records.
>> 
>>Were they First Communion or Confirmation names?
>> 
>>Did they or their parents chose the names?
>> 
>>Thanks.
>> 
>>Carmen
>> 
>>   
>> 
>>                
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