ALCUNHAS / NICKNAMES

About Macanese Nicknames

Many Macanese are only known by unusual names that are totally unrelated to their given names. These sometimes use words in two languages (e.g., Portuguese and Cantonese). Prof Alan Baxter and Miguel de Senna Fernandes, in an excellent booklet (Maquista Chapado) that includes lists of names, distinguish between family or pet names and nicknames. They point out that usually it was the family amah who would give the pet name to the child in her care, and that nicknames "portray the Macanese sense of humour, malice and sharp social observations of everything and everyone".

António Pacheco Jorge da Silva in his impressive book (The Portuguese Community in Hong Kong, Conselho das Comunidades Macaenses, 2007), also gives a list of nicknames.

Here I have made no distinction between family names and nicknames, and present an index of all the "nicknames" in the database. In most cases, clicking on a name will take you to that person's page. I have also included nicknames that do not appear in the database: from Baxter and Senna Fernandes (these appear without surnames, with Portuguese spelling, many with explanatory footnotes), from Jorge da Silva (with surnames) and from an article by Senna Fernandes (in Portuguese). Many other nicknames were collected from other sources – publications of the various Casas de Macau, from correspondence with collaborators, etc. Clicking on the * next to a nickname will take you to a footnote about that nickname; when at the footnote, clicking on BackArrow will take you back to the list of nicknames.

In a few instances I have omitted the surnames and links deliberately because the nicknames might be considered offensive

See also the article On Macanese Nicknames by Frederic A. "Jim" Silva.