My name is Laura. Its root language is Latin, and it means “success”.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a Japanese name.

However, the majority of people in my generation don’t have a Brazilian name.

If you only had a Japanese name, you were teased by classmates at school, and even the teachers would make inappropriate comments.  So more than a few Japanese Brazilians had a tough time back then.

Also, there were students who quit going to school because they were told their Portuguese pronunciation was “weird” or “awful”. It was a type of “bullying.”

But that’s a story for another time, so let’s get back to names…

There were many names, like Shizuko, Masakazu and Shoichiro, that were very difficult for Brazilians to pronounce. As a result, many people used nicknames.

My mother was born in Brazil, and was named Mitsuno by my grandfather.  She attended a local Japanese school so that it wasn’t a problem, but at other places like city hall or the bank, it was often mistaken for a man’s name. That’s because in Brazil, women’s names typically end with “a”, while men’s names end with “o”.

When she was teaching at a dressmaking school, my mother suffered. Brazilian couldn’t pronounce Mitsuno, so she thought she’d come up with a nickname. So she took the name of “Dona Luiza,” which was the name of a teacher at a nearby elementary school. From that time on, among Brazilian people she was always called Luiza. 

My mom was one of 10 children, all born in Brazil. The first seven kids only had Japanese names, but from the eighth on they had Brazilian names. However, that wasn’t my grandfather’s idea.  It was on the recommendation of a department head at city hall that Brazilian names were also given. 

And there’s an interesting story about that.

Mr. A came as an immigrant, but even after decades in Brazil, he could only speak broken Portuguese. He was blessed with seven children and each time one was born, he would go to city hall and choose a name. There was also a list of Japanese Brazilian names to choose from.

However, since Japanese names were used among family members, Mr. A didn’t really remember the Brazilian names of his own children. Because of that, two daughters ended up with almost exactly the same name. The oldest daughter was Iraci, while the 5th-born daughter was Araci.

Conversely, for some reason, there were also cases where Brazilians gave their children Japanese names. Names like Sayonara, Yuri, Sayuri, Hirohito, etc.

So what’s the story behind your name?

© 2011 Laura Honda-Hasegawa