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How Did Each BRAZILIAN State Get Its Name?
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Mar 31, 2025
Support me on Patreon & get exclusive / ahead of time content! https://www.patreon.com/generalknowledge In this video I talk about the etymology of Brazilian State Names. Brazil is a federal republic, and its territory is organized into 26 states and one federal district: Brazilia. Throughout the video I go through each of these states: Acre, Alagoas, Amazonas, Amapá, Bahia, Ceará, Distrito Federal, Espírito Santo, Goiás, Maranhão, Minas Gerais ,Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Pará, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Piauí, Paraná, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Norte, Rondônia, Roraima, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Sergipe, São Paulo, and Tocantins. Learning how most of the states (16 out of the 26) are named after a river or large body of water; usually coming from a term of the native Tupi Language, although other native idioms are also sometimes at the origin. Some are interpretations and translations/adaptations of these terms into Portuguese, while others are entirely of Portuguese origin, namely those that reference Christian Saints. By summarizing this topic I believe we are able to get a good understanding of the origin and meaning of each of Brazil's states. TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Intro 01:10 Acre 02:10 Alagoas 02:46 Amapá 03:21 Amazonas 04:01 Bahia 04:33 Ceará 04:52 Espírito Santo 05:14 Goiás 05:46 Maranhão 06:04 Mato Grosso 06:22 Mato Grosso do Sul 06:30 Minas Gerais 07:02 Pará 07:17 Paraíba
View Video Transcript
0:00
Brazil is a federal country, which means that it divides and organizes its territories into states which hold a big degree of autonomy in a very similar way to how the US work
0:12
Each state has its own governments and constitution. There are 25 of them, well, 26 if you count the mysterious and ghost state of Acre
0:21
In addition to those 26, they also have a federal district, Brasilia, and as you can immediately tell
0:26
the name of the federal state is very similar to that of the country. Brasilia wasn't organically settled by Portuguese colonists in the same way that Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo were
0:37
two cities often mistakenly thought of as the country's capital. No, Brasilia was built on purpose to be the capital of the country
0:45
and when they built it, they chose to name it precisely after the country, using what some say is a feminine version of it
0:52
So, this led me to think, how did all the other states get their name
0:56
and what do those names mean? In this video, that's what we are going to find out
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Let's go alphabetically. First, Akre. The name was given to the territory in 1904
1:15
and comes from one of the local rivers with the same name. There are various speculated origins
1:20
for the name of the river. Some claim it's the native Tupi word Akiru, which means green river
1:26
or from another word, Yazidi, meaning flowing water. The European explorers would then have
1:31
translated it. There's a letter between an explorer and a merchant in 1878, and he asks for goods to
1:38
be sent to the mouth of the Akiri River. It's said that the merchant didn't understand his handwriting
1:43
and read it as Akri, but again, this is speculation. Akri is coincidentally also the name of a city
1:50
in the Middle East, having existed with that name for hundreds of years, the siege of Acre
1:54
in 1291, is in fact the moment marked as the end of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem
2:00
a result of the First Crusade. Considering Portugal colonized Brazil and was a very Catholic
2:05
country back then, one is left to wonder if the name choice is also connected to that
2:10
Next we move from the interior to the coast, to the small state of Alagoas. The name of Alagoas
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comes from two connected Portuguese words. The first is Lagoa, which means lake, or better yet
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lagoon. Lake would be lagu, I believe. The second is a lagar, which means to flood or to fill with
2:27
water. It is said the name was given to the region as early as the 16th century, right after
2:32
Portuguese arrival. The region is home to the Manguaba Lagoon and the Mundau Lagoon. It's likely
2:38
that these two were the causes for the name, which also justifies it being a plural form
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alagoas, not alagoa, adding the s at the end. Still starting with an A is Amapá. Different
2:49
origins are proposed for this state name, including old native Tupi Amapaba, meaning home of rain
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Amá meaning rain, and Pába meaning place. There is also a local tree known in Portuguese as Amapazeiro
3:01
the Latin name of which is Ancornia Amapá. The tree is, I believe, native to South America
3:06
especially Brazil, and so we can push away the hypothesis of the region being named
3:10
after an already existing tree known to the Europeans just because it existed there But some people say the local Otawak natives called it a similar name so maybe it comes from that Next is a very well known name Amazonish The name comes from the Amazon River that runs through the state
3:27
In turn, the river was supposedly named by Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana in
3:32
1541, who came to have come across a warlike tribe of natives, likening them to the Amazons
3:38
of Greek mythology. The etymology of the Greek Amazon is also interesting, although highly disputed and
3:44
seen as legend. Some state it comes from the ancient Greek word meaning breastless, with the
3:49
legend being that Amazon women fighters cut off their right breast as to not interfere with their
3:54
bow. Probably untrue, it's most likely the word is adapted from the Persian amazakaran, meaning to
4:00
make war. Starting with the B is Bahia and its name origin is very straightforward. Before its
4:05
current territorial organization and at its earliest moment of colonization, Brazil was
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organized into Portuguese captaincies. The one where Bahia is now was called Bahia de Todos os Santos
4:15
meaning Bay of All Saints, named by explorer Américo Vespucci, after whom, by the way
4:20
the continent of America is named. He found the bay on the day of all saints and so named it as
4:25
such. Today the word bay in Portuguese is Bahia without an age, but in ancient Portuguese it had
4:31
it and so they kept it up to today. Ciara is next, also on the coast, in the north
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and its name is said to come from the native Tupi words meaning turquoise or green waters
4:41
although the most widely accepted origin, also from Tupi, is that it comes from Semo, meaning to sing
4:47
and Ara, a small bird native to the region, referring to the singing of the birds
4:52
Shpidutsantu is next and its name is also very simple to explain, it is named after the Holy Spirit from the Christian faith
4:58
The choice of the name is said to be because the first colonial settlement was founded on the Sunday
5:03
of Pentecost, which is apparently a Christian date which commemorates the descent of the
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Holy Spirit upon the apostles in Jerusalem. It's always celebrated on the 50th Sunday of every year
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Next is Goyazh. All we know is the early form of it was Goyazh with a Y and a Z
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Some people say the region was inhabited by a tribe called the Goyazh who went extinct
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but there's no real evidence that this tribe ever existed, only some third-party accounts
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of a supposed people called Goya or Guayana. The early native name for it, according to this theory, would be Guaya in the Tupi language
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which the explorers adapted to Goiás and then it transformed into Guayash
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While it's likely to be related to native people, it's uncertain which and how
5:46
Further north is Maranhão. The etymology of it is uncertain. The name probably originates from Portuguese settlers from Maranhão in Avish in the province of Alentejo in Portugal
5:55
It was a custom for explorers to name newly found locations either after the place they were from or after the place the new location
6:03
Reminded them of another starting with an M is Matugrosu Matugrosu literally translates to thick woods and this name was apparently given by Portuguese
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Explorers as a way of marking the type of terrain found there they ran into thick strong woods and so named it
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Dusli. Dusli, is that a word? I think so. Just south of it is precisely Matgrós Dusul. Dusul
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means southern, it's just the same origin plus that geographic locator. Next is Minajiraish
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There two theories of how this one got its name The first is that it a shortening of the old name of the local captaincy Minajtujmatjiraish mine of the General Woods The second interpretation is that the name simply means General Mines with the word Jeraish serving as an adjective to the mines which were themselves
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spread in several spots along a larger region. There's not a determined origin though
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I would guess a combination of both of them might be true. For any of these uncertain ones
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feel free to correct me in the comments if you have additional information
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Para is next. The state's name is literally the Tupi word para meaning sea, but sometimes used to
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refer to large rivers. The state was named after the river with the same name, the Para River
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one of the tributaries of the Amazon, called this name by the natives due to its large size
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Paraíba is a small coastal state, its name is a composite of two Tupi words as well, also referring
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to the water. Para means river and Aiba means difficult to invade or get into. They therefore
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named the local river this and the territory followed after. Elias Erxmans, governor of
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this captaincy in early colonial days, wrote about it in 1639, referring to this definition
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by the natives. Parana's name also comes from a native word. In general native language
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it means river. However, some sources state the term comes from another native language
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Guarani. In Guarani the word para means sea and ana means looks like. So it would again
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be a river that looks like the sea, the same as Pará. This would refer to the Paraná river, which the territory was then named after, something
8:04
that seems somewhat of a tendency here. The origins of Pernambuco are debated, though most hypotheses also state the names comes
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from the now extinct Tupi language. Some claim it's from the word Paraná meaning great river or sea and Bucca meaning whole
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so Pernambuco would mean whole in the sea, possibly referring to the c of Santa Cruz
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It's interesting to see how many of these names have a native origin
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According to others, Pernambuco was the name of Brazil wood in the local indigenous languages
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at the time of first contact, as the tree is found widely in the forests of the future state
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It would be an interesting case of the state being named through the same method and origin
8:44
as the country, but through a different language. A third hypothesis also derives from a Tupi word, Paranabuco, meaning long river, a possible
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reference to the Capibaribe river. The last state starting with a P is Piawui which also has an indigenous background
9:00
Its native name for the region was initially Pia-Gui and guess what it meant, that's
9:04
right, river. Supposedly meaning Piawbas River, Piawbas are a type of fish found there, these fish
9:10
were also named by the Tupi people from the word Piawa which means stained skin because
9:15
of how they look. I wonder if this tendency of native people naming almost all their regions after the
9:20
local river, is common throughout the world or exclusive to the Tupi in South America
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And to switch things up a bit, the next 3 state names literally have the word river in them
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Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Norte and Rio Grande do Sul. Let's start with Rio de Janeiro
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The name was given to the city's original site by Portuguese navigators who arrived
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on January 1st of 1502 and mistook the entrance of the bay for the mouth of a river
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Rio is the Portuguese word for river and Janeiro the word for January
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So at least this one is named after a non river for change Rio Grande do North is very far away from Rio Grande do Sul although their names are the same meaning Big River of the North and South respectively The Northern one was named first after the Potengui river which is over 176 km long
10:09
At the time it was only called Rio Grande, the North was added to differentiate from
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the other one in the South in the 18th century. Rio Grande do Sul was named Big River due to the explorers confusing a large lake with
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the river, the Lagoa do Spatsch. In fact, in a 1670 atlas by Dutch cartographer Frederic
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de Witt, it's already labelled as Big River. Once the region was added to Brazil, it kept
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the name but added the south too. Rondônia is next, previously known as the Guapôre territory until 1956, a name that
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came from the local river that established the border between Brazil and Bolivia. Guapôre
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apparently came from the Tupi words Wa, meaning countryside, and Poré, meaning waterfalls
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When the territory became a state, it was renamed Rondonia in honor of Marshall Rondon
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a Brazilian military man and explorer. Joraima is the northernmost state of Brazil and why does it have this name
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It comes from the Pemon native language, not from Tupi for change and there's three possible
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meanings, Green Peak, Mudder of the Winds and Cashew Mountain. It would be the junction of Joro, Parrot and Ima, Father or Former but in the Pemon language
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Jora also means green and Ima means mountains or peak. I believe it's common for languages to have the same words for different meanings depending
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on the context, Portuguese itself does that today. The two next states are named after Christian saints, first Santa Catarina, Francisco de
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Esvelho, an explorer, established the first settlement in this area and built a chapel
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for Saint Catherine of Alexandria. And so the territory and later the state eventually took the same name
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Saint Catherine is still the patron saint of the state. The other one is São Paulo, named after Saint Paul
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Upon arrival, Christian pilgrims founded a Jesuit school using the name of the saint
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The territory eventually took it as its own. Sergipe brings us back to the river origins
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Its name comes from the Tupi language and means river of Sirish, a type of crab
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The name would come from three Tupi components, Seri, the Siri crabs, I, river, and Pe, Inn
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Serip, then adapted to Sergipe in Portuguese. What strikes me as a little doubtful in some of these is that the Tupi would have to have
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had multiple words for river or sea but it's very possible that they did
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And finally, Tukantinsh. Tukantinsh refers to the Tukantinsh river which itself derives from the Tupi language
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words Tuka meaning toucan and T meaning beak, literally toucan's beak. I don't know why this was the chosen name and what the connection to toucans is, perhaps
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they existed in the area of the river. So that is the origin and meaning of each Brazilian state name, 16 out of 26 of them are named
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after the local river and the vast majority also have a native origin in the original
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name of the territory. Did you notice any mistakes? Do you have any additional information about any of these
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Let me know in the comments along with your suggestions of which other name origins I should
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do videos on. Thanks so much for watching this video, subscribe if you want and I will see you next time for
13:11
more general knowledge
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