Sousa (surname)

Sousa
Coat of arms associated to Sousa (do Prado branch) surname
Origin
Region of origin	Portugal
Meaning	toponymic (from the name of a river); literally "stones, rocks"
Other names
Variant(s)	de Sousa, Souza, de Souza, D'Souza

Sousa (/ˈsuːzə/, Portuguese: [ˈso(w)zɐ]), Souza, de Sousa (literally, from Sousa), or de Souza is a common Portuguese-language surname, especially in Portugal, Brazil, East Timor, India (among Catholics in Goa, Bombay, and Mangalore), and Galicia.^[1] In Africa, the name is common among people with Portuguese and Brazilian roots in Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Angola, São Tomé and Príncipe, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique.

Etymology and history

The name was originally a toponym, the Sousa River Northern Portugal. Sometimes the spelling is in the archaic form Souza or de Souza, which has occasionally been changed to D'Souza. The Spanish equivalent of this surname is Sosa.

During the colonial era, the Portuguese built forts along Brazilian and West African coastal areas for trade, many of which were later used for the slave trade. They also had children with local women, and the children were given their fathers' last names.

Some Afro-Brazilians who returned to Africa also carry this last name. Among those are the Tabom people, descendants of Francisco Félix de Sousa, a white Portuguese-Brazilian man from Salvador, Bahia, in Brazil, once the richest man in West Africa due to his involvement in its slave trade.

Notable people sharing a variation of the surname Sousa

See also

• Sosa (surname), the Spanish equivalent

References