RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Open the phone book and embark on an expedition into the wondrous world of Brazilian names.
A quick search unearths gems: Welfare Almeida, Nostradamus Coelho, Waterloo da Silva, Ben Hur Euzebio and Flavio Cavalcanti Rei da Televisao (King of Television) Nogueira.
Let's call one of these people and find out what the heck is going on with these names.
"My grandfather's name was Moacir, which in the Tupi Guarani indigenous language means 'bad omen,' " explains Welfare Almeida, an anesthesiologist. "So he named my father Welfare, because it meant well-being, which was the opposite. And there was a famous English soccer player in Sao Paulo named Harry Welfare."
All that seems exotic, but it's actually run-of-the-mill. Parents in Brazil have named their children Xerox, Skylab, Nausea, D'Artagnan, Barrigudinha (Little-Bellied Girl), Colapso Cardiaco (Cardiac Collapse), Saddam Hussein (known by the affectionate diminutive Saddamzinho), Antonio Morrendo das Dores (Dying of Pain) and, in a prodigious burst of inspiration in Recife eight years ago, Tchaikovsky Johannsen Adler Pryce Jackman Faier Ludwin Zolman Hunter Lins.
The magic of names
Brazilians have elevated names to an art form as playful and magical as their music and dance. Brazilians see naming a baby as an opportunity to have fun. Names become talismans; badges of creativity and individualism. Names tell short stories about the dazzling meld of cultures that make up this society, its layers of superstition and inequality, tolerance and snobbery, dreams and improvisation.
"In Brazil, the act of naming has a strong magical content," says Elaine Rabinovitch, a Sao Paulo psychologist who studies the psychology of names. "We have this mixed identity that comes from a colony composed of indigenous peoples, African slaves and Europeans. And we have an extraordinarily rich oral tradition. Brazilians are always inventing words. Many names are given simply because the parents like the sound."
In Brazil, almost anything goes. The freewheeling mentality contrasts with the policies of neighboring nations such as Argentina, where the repressive legacy of Spanish colonists lingers.
Names are a solemn ritual at the registrar's office in Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital. The bureaucracy maintains a list of acceptable names -- mostly of classic Roman Catholic-Spanish origin -- which exudes the authority of a sacred document.
Until last month, when federal authorities decided to loosen the restrictions, Argentine parents who picked for their baby a name that was not on the list risked the disconcerting experience of having a haughty clerk reject their choice and send them home to think up an acceptable one. One Jewish Argentine couple won approval for a Hebrew name for their baby girl by presenting a letter from the Israeli Embassy authenticating the name's existence.
Brazilian officialdom is far less uptight, but, theoretically, here too the law forbids names that could expose children to ridicule. In 1990, a magistrate in the northeastern city of Salvador drew the line and refused to let Miraldo do Moura Eugenio, a carpenter, name his son Rambo. The judge rejected the mother's compromise proposal: Sylvester Stallone.
The defiant father told reporters he would inscribe the child in another city, declaring: "He's my son, and I'll name him anything I want."
Parental second thoughts
The law is enforced sporadically at best, although some parents eventually have second thoughts and seek a name change for a school-age child who is being teased too much.
"That happens quite a bit," says Waldner Quintanilha, the kindly area registrar in the working-class Estacio neighborhood. His father's name was Wagner, and he is the authority to whom parents come to register newborns. The white-haired, rumpled Quintanilha has worked 51 years in the windowless street-front office, with its dusty volumes lining shelves and the continuous murmur of computer printers.
He tries to share his expertise -- he has written a manual addressing the proper spelling of first names -- but parents insist on phonetic versions, and delight in inserting the letters K, W and Y, which are not used in Portuguese, the language spoken in Brazil.
"They say they like the way a name looks," Quintanilha says. "They are concerned more with the visual appearance than the etymology."
Hence Diana, popular because of the late princess of Wales, becomes Tayane. Carolina becomes Kerolyne. Malcolm becomes Myacon. William Holden becomes Willi Horner. Edison, an homage to the U.S. inventor, becomes Edson, the first name of the soccer legend known around the globe by his nickname: Pele.
Edson, Robson, Anderson and Washington are favorite first names in Rio's "favelas," or slums, partly because of the percussive "on" sound and partly because American-sounding names are seen as cool and classy.
Seeking status
Lower-middle-class families, seeking status, go to elaborate lengths. "Some cross the line into silliness," Quintanilha says, asking an employee to bring him the office's hand-scrawled, three-page list of "extravagant" names compiled over the years.
"Let's see: Adolfo Hitler, we had a lot of those during World War II. Siddartha Michael Jackson Concetta Trombetta Diletta Highlander Marafona, which is a synonym for prostitute. Imagine naming your kid that."
Parents copy from soap operas, movies, songs, domestic appliances.
Sometimes, Quintanilha persuades fathers to reconsider a bizarre choice, then watches them return sheepishly after a scolding from their wives. Brazilian mothers usually dominate the choosing of names, according to Rabinovitch, the psychologist. Their selections often "compensate for their frustrations and needs," she says.
Flamboyant first names also offer a shield against anonymity, because of the limited supply of Portuguese last names. Today, an abundance of De Souzas, Dos Santoses and Nascimentos forces Brazilians to provide both parents' names as identification for bureaucratic procedures.
"It's natural when you have a common last name to look for a 'really different' first name that makes an individual stand out," Rabinovitch says.
After independence, Brazil developed a stratified but curiously informal society in which even politicians were known by their first names. The members of the influential Rosado clan of the state of Rio Grande do Norte were named after numbers in French: Un, Deux, Trois, and so on, up to the popular Vingt-Huit, or 28.
Use of first names
Today, Brazilians routinely address dignitaries by their first names, perhaps attaching a title, as in "Dr. Roberto," or "Professor Marcelo." Newspapers refer to President Fernando Henrique Cardoso simply as "Fernando Henrique." Three-time presidential candidate Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, is known as Lula, his nickname; he legally incorporated it into his official name when he realized he was in danger of losing countless votes.
Religious and mystical inspiration comes from a pantheon of saints revered by worshipers who blend Catholicism and Afro-Brazilian creeds. Another source of names is the animal lottery, a kind of urban numbers game based on superstitions that imbue animals and dates with good luck. Souto's dictionary includes the entry Antonio Treze de Junio de Mil Novecentos e Dezesette (June 13, 1917).
Pub Date: 6/15/99