Antroponimia, diáspora y migración: los descendientes de lituanos en Brasil

Abstract

There are Brazilian works on Lithuanian immigration in Brasil, but the phenomenon of imgration from an anthroponimic point of view has not been studies yet. Although limited, this research contributes to fill this research gap. On a Socionomastic basis, a corpus made up of a sample of 55 personal names of members of the closed group of Facebook “Eu sou brasileiro e descendente de lituanos” (Iam Brazilian and descendant of Lithuanians”. The main hypothesis of the research is that in a migratory context, when it is need to name a descendant, immigrants parents have at least two alternatives which represents the extrems of a spectrum: adaptation to the naming system characteristics of the receiving country or conservation of the naming system characteristics of the country of origin. The descendants, in turn, when they need to name their children may or may not follow the decicions made by their parents. In the sample analyzed, while the first names followed Brazilian anthroponimic tendencies, the surnames were changed following adaptations also registereded in other countries where there were or there are Lithuanian migrants: loss of letters that are exclusives to Lithuanian orthography and, in surmanes, absence of typical endings for female beares. Keyword: Lexicology; Onomastics; Antroponomátics; Lithuanian migration.