Portuguese Last Name Generator

Get Portuguese last names in Portugal's own spellings, from leaders like Silva, Sousa and Ferreira to old family names like Queirós and Bettencourt, particle forms like da Cunha and two-surname combinations like Gomes Pereira.

About Portuguese last names

Most Portuguese surnames fall into a handful of types. Patronymics end in -es and once meant "child of": Fernandes from Fernando, Rodrigues from Rodrigo, Henriques from Henrique. Towns and estates gave Guimarães, Bragança and Coimbra. The landscape gave the tree and plant names the language is known for: Oliveira is an olive tree, Pereira a pear tree, Carvalho an oak and Silva a wood or a bramble. Nicknames, offices and devotion supplied the rest, from Lobo and Bispo to Santos, Conceição and Espírito Santo.

A full Portuguese name usually carries two or more family names. By custom the mother's surname comes first and the father's comes last, the reverse of the Spanish order, and the last one is the name most people go by. The small words de, da, do, dos and das tie a name to a place or a devotion. They are written in lower case, and a Portuguese index skips them when names are put in order, so da Cunha is filed under C.

This list keeps to the spellings used in Portugal, which often differ from Brazil's: Sousa rather than Souza, Baptista rather than Batista, Queirós rather than Queiroz, Meneses rather than Menezes. Single surnames are mixed with particle forms and two-surname combinations, so you can take one name or a whole family name.

How to choose Portuguese last names

• For the traditional order, put the mother's surname before the father's: a character called Ana Matos Ferreira has a Matos mother and a Ferreira father, and is Ana Ferreira for short.
• Keep a particle in lower case and attached to its surname: dos Santos, da Cunha, de Almeida. Dropping it in casual use is normal, capitalizing it in the middle of a name is not.
• For a character from Portugal rather than Brazil, stay with the spellings on this page, such as Sousa, Queirós and Baptista.
• Pair a very common surname such as Silva or Santos with a rarer one such as Sacadura or Mexia when a character has to stand out in a town full of Silvas.
• Say the name aloud before you settle on it. The ending of Guimarães and Magalhães is nasal, and the lh in Carvalho sounds like the lli in million.

Frequently asked questions

What are the most common Portuguese last names?

Silva is the most common surname in Portugal. Santos, Ferreira, Pereira, Oliveira, Costa, Rodrigues and Martins are regularly counted among the leaders too. All of them are in this list, next to several hundred names you will meet far less often, such as Alcoforado, Pessanha and Zambujo.

Why do Portuguese people have two last names, and in what order?

Children usually receive surnames from both parents. The mother's family name is placed first and the father's last, which is the opposite of the Spanish custom. In everyday life most people are known by the final surname, so someone registered as Maria Lopes Cardoso is usually just Maria Cardoso.

What do de, da, do, dos and das mean in a Portuguese surname?

They mean "of" or "of the" and agree with the word that follows: da Silva, do Monte, dos Santos, das Neves. Most began as a link to a place, an estate or a religious devotion. Unlike the French de, the particle is not a sign of rank in Portuguese, and families use or drop it freely.

Are Portuguese and Brazilian last names the same?

Largely, because most Brazilian surnames came from Portugal. The spellings often differ, though, and Brazil adds many family names brought by Italian, German, Japanese, Lebanese and other immigrants. This page stays with Portugal's forms, so you will find Sousa, Meneses and Queirós here rather than Souza, Menezes and Queiroz.

Related generators

All 500 Portuguese last names