Best Brazilian Names?

Here’s a list I’ve been compiling on my phone over the past few months of my favourite Brazilian forenames. This sounds kind of sad, and it probably is. But in my defence, the names I see as I go out and about round here, on name-tags and the like, really are a vast and richly variegated treasure-house of insanity.

To explain a little further, the first few on here I like because they’re transliterations of popular Anglo-American names which, in their wild disregard for the niceties of English spelling, reveal the total indifference of large chunks of the Brazilian population to the outside world (this is not an isolated phenomenon; the Duty Free concession at Guarulhos, São Paulo’s international airport, is branded ‘Dufree’ in a phonetic rendering that will have tourists from  around the world scratching their heads come the World Cup). As for the rest, I like them because they seem to allude to decisions or traditions I don’t know about in a way that makes me bracingly aware of life’s endless weirdness.  

Ketylyn

Willian

Zeilda

Waxington (since the letter ‘x’ is pronounced ‘chees’ in Brazilian Portuguese, this is pronounced ‘Wa-cheeng-ton’, as in first president of the United States, Mr. George Waxington)

Isaquiel (Ezekiel?)

Warliason (Williamson, possibly?)

Formiga (this means ant)

Nando (extra spicy)

Pitter (extra humus)

Nadir (extra bad)

Glaucineide (apparently it’s a flower)

I’m pretty sure there are loads of good ones I’m missing, so I expect I’ll probably try and update this at some stage. Because I am a grown-up and I have lots of important things to do.