Toponyms of Brazilian Cities #3

On the first two posts of this series I brought examples of Brazilian municípios (municipalities) named after the Catholic religion and named by the indigenous. These two are, certainly, the main toponyms for our municípios: more than a half of them are named after a Saint (or a member of the Holy Family) or have an indigenous name (that was gave to that region or river before the colonization). Nonetheless, there are a great number of smaller toponyms, which will be the subject of this and the following posts. Today, I will talk a little about the cities named after a historical figure.

Well, there are many reasons why a person would be honoured as a namesake for a city: they could be the landowner of that area (as is the case of Milton Keynes, in Britain) or a very important politician (is there a better example than Washington?) or a self-tribute (anyone said Nur-Sultan?). I truly believe there are more reasons for naming a city after someone (for which I do not think of known examples), like it being an important combatant/warrior (let's say Jeanne d'Arc) or even someone who was there when the village was founded and no one had a better idea for naming it?

In Brazil, I believe all those reasons are present. Some would argue most of the cities are named because of coronelismo - a political machine that existed during the first decades of the 20th Century (and, again, some would argue it never ceased to exist) and was characterized by rich landowners buying votes of the poor people in rural areas. I agree that coronelismo was responsible for some of the names, but would disagree it was the main reason. But, yeah, for sure most of these cities are named after a politician. In my honest opinion, Brazilians just like to honour someone famous to feel like that someone is a friend of theirs.

Of the 35 Brazilian presidents so far, 19 were namesakes for 45 municípios. Tancredo Neves, who died before taking office in 1985, is also honoured - he is the symbol of the re-democratization after the two decades of civil-militar dictatorship [1]. The marshal Floriano Peixoto, who was president during 1891-1894, is the biggest president namesake, with four cities named after him. One of these cities is Florianópolis, the state capital of Santa Catarina. But this is not a proper honour as we would usually think. Peixoto was the second president of the 1st Brazilian Republic. After marshal Deodoro da Fonseca - the man who kicked Emperor Pedro II out of the country, despite being close friends with the monarch, and the first president of the United States of Brazil - resigned in 1891, Peixoto took office and did not call for an election, ignoring the Constitution. The city of Nossa Senhora de Desterro, in Santa Catarina, became a stronghold against him, trying to force new elections. The president sent troops to the city, bombarded it and renamed it to "Floriano polis" (City of Floriano). So, it is some sort of cynical honour to him.

The easiest way to go from now on is to talk about regional specificity in honouring the presidents. São Paulo has 7 cities named after them, more than any other state. It can be explained by the development of railways on the sertões (inhospitable countryside) of the state. As it was mostly depopulated [2], the engineers had to create stations, which would be the zero milestone to new small cities. As naming something is always a problem, they usually named it after either a saint, an indigenous toponymy or a president. On the old rails of the Sorocabana Railway, we would find the present cities of Presidente Bernardes - Artur Bernardes (1922-1926) -, Presidente Prudente - Prudente de Morais (1894-1898) -, Presidente Venceslau - Venceslau Brás (1914-1918) - and Presidente Epitácio - Epitácio Pessoa (1919-1922). On the Northeast Railway, there is Presidente Alves - Rodrigues Alves (1902-1906).

Many of the presidents are honoured at the states they were born. The city of Deodoro da Fonseca (Alagoas), where the first president was born, changed its name in 1939 to honour its most famous citizen. Rio Grande do Sul honours Getúlio Vargas, president after the 1930 coup d'état, dictator from 1937 to 1945 and elected president from 1951 to 1954. Santa Catarina honours Presidente Nereu Ramos (1955-1956), who was the only catarinense president, holding office for 81 days during the instability after Vargas' suicide. Minas Gerais doubly honours Juscelino Kubitschek (1956-1961), the charismatic mineiro president, with the cities of Presidente Juscelino and President Kubitschek, and also honours Wenceslau Braz (the old way of writing Venceslau Brás' name) [3].

Two of the five civil-militar dictatorship (1964-1985) presidents are honoured: Humberto Castelo Branco (1964-1967), the first to take office after the coup, and Emilio Médici (1969-1974), the most heavy-handed dictator of this period. Médici was responsible for creating the National Integration Program, which aimed to integrate the North territories to the rest of the country to avoid external invasions - just as a reminder, the Brazilian North is where the Amazon forest is located, and the forest can be very inhospitable in some areas. Two of the cities named after him were created by this program, making it an obvious honour.

And, as in Brazil there must always be something a little... unusual (not to say weird), there are also presidents from other countries who are honoured here! The first one is Julio Roca, president of Argentina during 1880-1886 and 1898-1904, who is the name sake for Roca Sales, in Rio Grande do Sul. I really like this name because it is a combination of Julio Roca's and Campos Sales's (1898-1902) names. It is said that the both presidents met in the city during their time in office. The other president is John F. Kennedy (president of the U.S. 1961-1963), who gives the name to the two cities called Presidente Kennedy, in a tribute to him after his murder.

There are also some cities named after other politicians: governors, senators, deputies and city councilmen. Not going to give many examples of these, because they are far less interesting that the president ones, but some examples still somewhat funny.

The state of Maranhão has six cities named after state governors: Governador Archer - Sebastião Archer (1947-1951) -, Governador Edison Lobão (1991-1994), Governador Eugênio Barros (1951), Governador Luiz Rocha (1983-1987), Governador Newton Bello (1961-1966) and Governador Nunes Freire (1975-1979). In this state, also lies the city of Presidente Sarney, - José Sarney, state governor (1966-1970) and president of the Republic (1985-1990). In Brazilian legislation, it is said a person can only be namesake for something (a city, a bypass, a roadway etc.) after they die. And this is interesting: Edison Lobão and José Sarney are still alive. The Judiciary has been battling the city halls for the last 10 years to make them change its name, but nothing has happened so far.

At Santa Catarina, there are two cities honouring the governor Celso Ramos (1961-1966): Governador Celso Ramos and Celso Ramos. The catarinenses really seem to like their politicians (I gave the example of Presidente Nereu, who was the president for less than three months).

Delfim Moreira, who was the governor of Minas Gerais (1914-1918) and the interim president (1918-1919) after the death of the elected president Rodrigues Alves, is honoured twice: Delfinópolis, named when he was the governor of MG, and Delfim Moreira, named after his presidency. Both of them lie on Minas.

At São Paulo, you can find the cities of Bady Bassitt and Brodowski. The first one is named after a state deputy with Lebanese ancestry. The second one honours the Polish engineer Alexander Brodowski, who convinced the Mogiana Railway Company to build a station in the city.

I must remember also of João Pessoa, state capital of Paraíba. João Pessoa Cavalcanti de Albuquerque was a very famous politician from the state and was a candidate for vice-presidency in the 1930 elections. After the results of this election were out, João Pessoa was killed (and no one knows for sure if it was for a political or a romantic motivation), and its murder helped to sparkled the 1930 Revolution [4].

At Rio Grande do Norte, there is a city called Governador Dix-Sept Rosado. Jerônimo Dix-Sept Rosado was the governor of Rio Grande do Norte in 1951 and died on the first year in office. He had two politician brothers, named Jerônimo Vignt Rosado and Jerônimo Vignt-Un Rosado. As it may be obivous, they were named after French numerals (Dix-Sept was the 17th son, Vignt the 20th and Vignt-Un the 21st). Here there is a list of all their siblings' names - spoiler: they all have numerals in their names.

Some cities are also names after "common" people, that is, not after properly politicians or military. The first example that comes to my mind is Luis Eduardo Magalhães, one of the most important cities for the Brazilian agrobusiness, named after the son of the governor of Bahia Antônio Carlos Magalhães (1971-1975, 1979-1983, 1991-1994) - so, again, not properly a politician, just his son.

On the explorers category, there is João Monlevade, named after Jean-Antoine Félix Dissandes de Monlevade, a French engineer who did mineralogical studies on the village looking for iron. I can also easily remember of Pontes e Lacerda, named after two cartographers, Antonio Pires da Silva Pontes and Francisco José Lacerda, who went to that area to map the Amazon river basin. Another example is Lucas do Rio Verde, honouring the explorer responsible for the latex extraction industry.

Monteiro Lobato, the controversial children's book writer, is the namesake for a city created on the lands owned by his rich family during the Brazilian Empire.

And, as the last example of this post, there is the city of São Miguel do Gostoso, whose name is very funny: it literally means "St. Michael of the Pleasant". But the gostoso is not some sort of heresy! It was given after a travelling merchant, who would come to the city and tell stories. It is said he had a funny laughter (a risada gostosa, in Portuguese) and, for that, he became known as Seu Gostoso (Mr. Pleasant). The village eventually became known by his name, and history was made.

So, here we finish this longer text. Hope I can bring the fourth part of this series soon!

[1] Besides being a symbol of the re-democratization, Tancredo was not elected by universal suffrage. During the dictatorship, the Federal Parliament was responsible for electing the presidents, and the same happened on the 1985 elections. The military agreed to let two civilians run for presidency (one on the military party, one on the opposition party) to make the transition back to democracy during the winner's term. Tancredo died before taking office, and many at that time feared it would result in a coup inside of the coup. Fortunately, they let the vice-president of the slate, José Sarney, take office.

[2] Well, depopulated does not mean there was no one living there. There were, actually, indigenous and small villages, not fully integrated to the country's economy due to its distance from the biggest urban centers. The railways were important to connect this areas to the consumer centers, allowing the coffee production to expand into the countryside.

[3] Near to Wenceslau Braz, there is a city called Brazópolis. Many assume both of the cities are named after Venceslau, but Brazópolis it actually named after his father. This is what happens when you come from a rich and powerful family of the countryside.

[4] João Pessoa was running as vice-president in the Getúlio Vargas' slate. Being extremely simplistic (the explanation is way more complex than this, but just wanted to add this funnyfact here): They lost this election, although they were supposed to win (the 1st Brazilian Republic presidency was characterized by a very peculiar power alternation between São Paulo and Minas Gerais and the buying of votes). The 1930 Revolution was probably going to happen anyway, but this murder helped sparkle the rebellion. Vargas brought his troops from Rio Grande do Sul to the federal capital, Rio de Janeiro, and took office "provisionally", and that provisionally lasted for 15 years.