Silva, the surname of presidents and soccer stars, has long carried stigma over its colonial links. Now, many see its legacy in new ways.
Fernando Santos da Silva’s surname — shared by 150 relatives — is an heirloom from a grim chapter of Brazil’s history.
Like millions of others in Latin America’s most populated country, he inherited it from his ancestors who were once enslaved, likely named after their captors.
With its painful roots, Silva was long a source of shame even as it became Brazil’s most common surname.
But today, the name is treated in a starkly different light.
“Silva is a symbol of resistance,” said Mr. Santos da Silva, 32, an antiques vendor from Rio de Janeiro. “It’s a connection, both to the present and to my ancestors.”
Whenever you meet a Brazilian, there’s a good chance that Silva is tucked somewhere in a lengthy, melodic last name. If not, they certainly have a friend or relative who has the name. (Most Brazilians use the surname of both their mother and father.)
Silva is found in the name of the nation’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and its most celebrated soccer player, Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior. It’s also shared by some five million other Brazilians, from movie stars and Olympic medalists to teachers, drivers and cleaners.
Exactly how Silva spread across Brazil — one in 40 Brazilians has the name — is the subject of some debate. But historians agree that much of its popularity is linked to slaveholders who gave the name to many enslaved people who then passed it down to future generations.
Marked by its colonial roots, the name was for decades synonymous with poverty and oppression in a majority Black country that only abolished slavery in 1888, and where deep racial and economic inequalities persist.
Few Brazilians embraced the name in the past. Many prominent figures, including Ayrton Senna da Silva, a Formula One driver in the 1980s and ’90s, quietly dropped Silva from their names.
But as Brazil rethinks how its brutal past helped shape the country’s identity, more and more well-known people are spotlighting their surname, conveying the idea that there’s nothing shameful about being a Silva.