View Full Version : Common Anglicized Portuguese surnames.

Sikeliot In my area we have a lot of Portuguese Americans, whose families have been here for generations, who no longer have "Portuguese" surnames but rather an Anglicized version. Those of you who live near Portuguese people, have you noticed something similar?



The most common ones I see, that I can recognize;



Barros and deBarros --> "Barrows"

Rodrigues --> "Roderick"

Pires --> "Peters"

Andrade --> "Andrews"

Henriques --> "Hendricks"

Freitas --> "Francis"

Cruz --> "Cross"



Any others?

Atlantic Islander Rodrigues to Rogers

Silva to Silver/s

Martins stayed Martins

Pereira to Perry

Flamengos to Fleming/s

Felipe to Phillips



Like I mentioned to you it was usually due to one of two things - to avoid discrimination or an error when they immigrated (the person writing it down just wrote what they heard).



I'll try and think of some more names.

Sikeliot I only know one person with Martins as a last name, and it's my friend's boyfriend's Cape Verdean grandmother's maiden name. Otherwise, until I got to the internet, I didn't even know it existed.



Some are probably translated directly. I know Portuguese Americans with "Bridges" and "King" as last names.. and obviously they must have originally been Pontes and Reis.

Atlantic Islander I only know one person with Martins as a last name, and it's my friend's boyfriend's Cape Verdean grandmother's maiden name. Otherwise, until I got to the internet, I didn't even know it existed.



Some are probably translated directly. I know Portuguese Americans with "Bridges" and "King" as last names.. and obviously they must have originally been Pontes and Reis.



Yes, they would have done that to avoid discrimination. Another thing is that multi-generational Portuguese aren't always fully Portuguese, they may have other ancestry as well and that could contribute to the name difference. There are plenty of only partially Portuguese-Americans that are active in festas and identify as Portuguese-American. I'm actually going to start a thread about Portuguese Americans (the multi-generational kind), to show some of the minor differences.

Han Cholo Rodrigues to Rogers

Silva to Silver/s

Martins stayed Martins

Pereira to Perry

Flamengos to Fleming/s

Felipe to Phillips



Like I mentioned to you it was usually due to one of two things - to avoid discrimination or an error when they immigrated (the person writing it down just wrote what they heard).



I'll try and think of some more names.



That is not even an accurate translation. Silva means forest or jungle. Do people really do that? :picard1::picard1::picard1::picard2:

Sikeliot daSilva sometimes becomes Sylvia around here.

Atlantic Islander That is not even an accurate translation. Silva means forest or jungle. Do people really do that? :picard1::picard1::picard1::picard2:



So? It's not about translating it, it's about making is sound more "American". Some people even ended up with very different surnames, because the person writing it wasn't able to figure out what they were saying.

Atlantic Islander There are also some like my own that already sound American, so there wasn't a need to change it.

Smaug I have already seen Abreu - Abroy

pinguino In my area we have a lot of Portuguese Americans, whose families have been here for generations, who no longer have "Portuguese" surnames but rather an Anglicized version. Those of you who live near Portuguese people, have you noticed something similar?



The most common ones I see, that I can recognize;



Barros and deBarros --> "Barrows"

Rodrigues --> "Roderick"

Pires --> "Peters"

Andrade --> "Andrews"

Henriques --> "Hendricks"

Freitas --> "Francis"

Cruz --> "Cross"



Any others?



That's weird, in here there are many hispanized last names, like these samples:



Goodman -> Guzman

Evans -> Ibañez

Blumen -> Flores

Damião de Góis That's weird, in here there are many hispanized last names, like these samples:



Goodman -> Guzman

Evans -> Ibañez

Blumen -> Flores



It's not strange that people change their surnames in america, for a better integration. I mean, if people emigrate they must adapt to their new country.

Smaug My Italian surname kept the origibal 'gn' instead of changing it to the Portuguese equivalent 'nh'.

Damião de Góis My Italian surname kept the origibal 'gn' instead of changing it to the Portuguese equivalent 'nh'.



most people probably pronounce it wrong then

Sikeliot My Italian surname kept the origibal 'gn' instead of changing it to the Portuguese equivalent 'nh'.



What is the surname?



I can't think of any Italian names that have a direct Portuguese equivalent by changing the middle letters. Montagna maybe is the only surname I can think of that you could probably change in that way.

Smaug most people probably pronounce it wrong then



Not actually. São Paulo has strong Italian influences, many places here have Italiana names with the originial writing preserved, so this is not a problem.





What is the surname?



I can't think of any Italian names that have a direct Portuguese equivalent by changing the middle letters. Montagna maybe is the only surname I can think of that you could probably change in that way.



No, my surname doesn't have a Portuguese equivalent. What I was saying is that the Italian 'gn' has the same sound as the Portuguese 'nh'. So Italian words like Montagna, Bologna or Gnocchi, in Portuguese would be Montanha, Bolonha and Nhóque. It didn't happen with my surname, it kept the 'gn'.

Slycooper My surname is not really one you can anglicized.

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