Portuguese Name Generator

Portuguese names follow a clear pattern: one or two given names, then the mother's family surname, then the father's – so Afonso Ribeiro Costa has a mother who was a Ribeiro and a father who is a Costa, and it is the final surname he is known by. Silva, Santos, Ferreira, Pereira, Oliveira, Costa, Rodrigues, Martins, Jesus and Sousa are the ten most common surnames in Portugal, followed by Fernandes, Gonçalves, Gomes, Lopes, Marques, Alves and Almeida. Many surnames are place names (Coimbra, Guimarães, Magalhães) or trees and landscape words such as Carvalho (oak), Pereira (pear tree), Oliveira (olive tree) and Figueiredo (fig grove).

Generation shows strongly in first names. Today's children in Portugal are Santiago, Francisco, Afonso, Duarte, Tomás and Martim, and Maria, Leonor, Matilde, Carolina, Beatriz and Benedita – notably different from Brazil's Miguel, Arthur and Helena. Parents are João, Pedro, Tiago, Ana, Rita and Inês; grandparents carry António, Manuel, José, Joaquim, Maria de Fátima, Conceição, Graça and Lurdes. Compound names like Maria João, Ana Rita, João Pedro and Luís Filipe are used as a single first name.

Spelling matters: Portugal writes António, Mónica and Sónia with acute accents where Brazil uses Antônio, Mônica and Sônia, and keeps the tilde in João, Simão and Conceição and the cedilla in Gonçalves and Lourenço.