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Portuguese Names 1350-1450

by Juliana de Luna (Julia Smith)
julias@alumni.pitt.edu

© 1998 by Julia Smith; all rights reserved.

Information about Iberian naming practices, and particularly Portuguesenaming practice, is relatively difficult to find in English. This articlemakes available information about Portuguese names in the early fifteenthcentury.

Fernam Lopez (modern Fernão) is one of the better known of the Portuguesechroniclers. During the first quarter of the fifteenth century, he wrotethree great chronicles, covering the reigns of three kings:

Cronica de dom Pedro I (The Chronicle of King Pedro I, who reigned 1357-1367)
Cronica de dom Fernando I (reigned 1367-1383)
Cronica de dom Joham I (The Chronicle of King João I, reigned 1385-1433)

These three chronicles have been published in translation (the first intoFrench and the second two partially translated into English) with atranscription of the original Portuguese side by side. This allows theanalysis of names in their original forms[1].

These chronicles provide a glimpse into Portuguese naming practice vastlydifferent from modern Portuguese, in some ways far more similar toSpanish. The names of 191 Portuguese men were identified in thesechronicles. The names of over 200 men from Castille, Aragon, England, andother places were excluded from the sample. The large number of foreignnames reflects the emphasis of the chronicle on public events,specifically the wars between Pedro of Castille and John of Gaunt, theEnglish prince who pressed a claim to the Castillian throne on behalf ofhis wife, a Spanish princess. Likewise, names that do not refer to realpeople alive at the time (saints, fictional characters) have been excludedfrom the data.

The actual names from the text can be found aton a separate page.

Given Names

Men's Names

The 191 individuals share only 24 names, though these names are found in avariety of forms (with a single individual's name often spelled multipleways).Joham, the most common name, accounts for 21% ofindividuals, and the top 5 names account for 56% of individuals. Themasculine given names are listed below in order of frequency. Variantforms are listed in declining order of frequency; counting the number ofindividuals with each form is not feasible since the names of someindividuals take more than one form.

1.	Joham, Johan, Johane, Johanne	40	(21%)
2.	Gonçallo, Gomçallo	22	(12%)
3.	Martim, Martym, Martinho, Martimho	16	(8%)
4.	Alvaro, Alvoro	15	(8%)
5.	Fernam, Fernanado, Feram	13	(7%)
6.	Affonso, Afonsso, Affonso, Afonso	11	(6%)
	Lourenço, Louremço, Loureço	11	(6%)
	Vaasco	11	(6%)
9.	Rrui, Rui, Ruy	9	(5%)
10.	Pedro, Pero	7	(4%)
11.	Gomez	5	(3%)
	Nuno	5	(3%)
	Rodrigo	5	(3%)
14.	Diego, Diogo	4	(2%)
	Gill, Gil	4	(2%)
16.	Lopo	3	(2%)
17.	Airas, Ayras	2	(1%)
	Hanrrique	2	(1%)

One mention each:Antam, Bernaldom, Denis, Estançinho, Estevam,Lançarote.

Women's Names

Women are less frequently mentioned in chronicles, due to their bias towardmen and people in the public view. Nonetheless, in these chronicles, 35Portuguese women and 33 foreign (mostly Castillian) women were mentioned.

The 35 Portuguese women had the following names (in alphabetical order):

Briatiz, Beatriz, Betriz	5
Enes	5
Lianor, Lionor	3
Maria	3
Tareija, Tareyja	3
Aldonça	1
Biringeira	1
Branca	1
Catalina	1
Costança	1
Isabell	1
Mayor	1
Sancha	1
Violante	1

All of these names are well attested in the Spanish kingdoms. A fewalternate spellings for these names can be documented by looking at thenames of foreign women.

Isabell is also spelledIsabel,Issebel,Issabell, andIssabel
Costança is also spelledComstamça
Catelina is also spelledCatellina

Bynames

Men's bynames are comparatively complex. Of 191 men, 28 have no bynamegiven in the text. Some are identified only by a given name because theyare members of the royal family; others are unimportant people mentionedonly in passing, and it is possible that the author simply did not knowtheir byname. Of those who have bynames, about half have single elementbynames and about half have two element bynames. From the text, there arefew clues to distinguish hereditary surnames from individual bynames. Thefew indications from the text suggest that some people were usinghereditary surnames, while others were using individual bynames. This issimilar to the situation in Spain at the same time: some individuals wereusing true patronymic bynames, while others were using inheritedpatronymic surnames.

The frequency of different types of bynames is as follows:


No Byname:		28	(15%)
Single Element Byname:		83	(43%)
	Patronymic ending inez	40
	Patronymic uninflected	11
	Locative withde	10
	Other	22
Two Element Byname:		80	(42%)
	Patronymic ending inez + locative	42
	Uninflected patronymic + locative	16
	Other	22

Patronymic Bynames

There are two forms that patronymic bynames take in Portuguese, similar tothe situation in Spanish. The form is determined by the father's name.In the more common form, the final vowel of the name is replaced with-ez. Most scholars consider that this is derived from the Latingenitive form. A smaller group of names are used as patronymic bynameswithout being modified in any way. In this data, 94 individuals (49%) hadas one of their bynames a patronymic bynames ending in-ez, while 33(17%) individuals had a patronymic byname that was not altered.

The following table includes names and their patronymic forms. Names inbrackets [] are not found in the texts, though all are documented inPortugal. Among the bracketed named, ones marked with a star* arefrom the late twelfth century; the unstarred names are from the sixteenthcentury.

Name	Patronymic form
Affonso	Affonso
Airas	[Airas]
Alvaro	Alvarez
[Andre]	André
Diego	Diaz
[Domingos]	Dominguez
Estavam	Estevez, Stevez
Fernam	Fernandez
Gill	Gill
Gonçallo	Gonçallvez
Gomez	Gomez
[Goterre]	Goterrez
Hanrrique	[Anrriquez]
Joham	Eannes
Lopo	Lopez
Lourenço	Lourenço
Martim	Martinez
[Mateus]	Mateus
*[Meen]	Meendez
Nuno	Nunez
[Paullo]	Paulo
Pero,Pedro	Perez
Rodrigo	Rodriguez
Rui	[Ruyz]
*[Sancho]	Sanchez
Vaasco	Vaasquez
[Vincente]	Vincente

Locative bynames

The second common type of byname is a locative byname, which normally takesthe form "de (of)". These names are somewhatless common in Portuguese at the time than in Spanish; however, 70individuals (37%) have a locative byname, either alone or following apatronymic byname. Patronymic bynames seem to have played several roles.Some seem to be hereditary surnames referring to the residence or historyof the family. Others seem to be individual bynames, describing where theperson was born or lives.

In Portuguese,de comes in a variety of forms. It is often elided withthe word following it. When it elides with an article (likethe, itagrees with the name that follows it in gender and number. Feminineplacenames are more likely to be marked than masculine placenames.Therefore, we find the following forms:

de (can be used with anything)	34
d' (before vowel)	17
do (before a masculine word)	6
da (before a feminine word)	11
dos (before a masculine plural)	0
das (before a feminine plural)	3

Other Bynames

A variety of bynames that do not fit into the previous categories arefound. Some are individual bynames, such asOvelho "theold". Others are old surnames that are found both in Spanish and inPortuguese.

Complex Bynames

Almost half the people with bynames have a two element byname. Themajority (73%) have names that combine a patronymic as the first elementwith a locative as the second element. The remainder combine either apatronymic or a locative element with an element that is neither.

Women's Bynames

Many of the women, especially royal women, are mentioned with only asingle name. However, 13 of the women have bynames listed.


No Byname:		18
Single Element Byname:		12
	Patronymic ending inez	3
	Patronymic uninflected	1
	Locative withde	4
	Other	4
Two Element Byname:		5
	Patronymic ending inez + locative	3
	Uninflected patronymic + locative	0
	Other	2

Women's bynames are somewhat more simple than men's names (only 14% ofwomen but 42% of men have two element bynames). However, all of the sametypes of names are found.

Notes

[1]Fernão Lopes.The English in Portugal, 1367-1387: Extracts fromthe Chronicles of Dom Fernando and Dom João with anintroduction, translation, and notes by Derek W. Lomax and R. J.Oakley (Warminster, UK: Aris and Phillips, Ltd., 1988). Unfortunately, theextracts in this source are not complete, but I have not yet located acomplete copy of these to include the rest of them.

Fernão Lopes.Chronique du Roi D. PedroI / Crónica do Rei D. Pedro I (transcribed Giuliano Macchi,translation to French and notes Jaqueline Steunou). Éditiones duCentre national de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, 1985.

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