List of Brazil state name etymologies

The names of most Brazilian states are based on indigenous (often Tupi–Guarani) placenames, while others are based on Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

and other European languages

Languages of Europe

Most of the languages of Europe belong to Indo-European language family. These are divided into a number of branches, including Romance, Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Greek, and others. The Uralic languages also have a significant presence in Europe, including the national languages Hungarian, Finnish,...

State name	Language of origin	Source word	Meaning and Notes
Acre Acre (state) Acre is one of the 27 states of Brazil. It is situated in the southwest of the Northern Region, bordering Amazonas to the north, Rondônia to the east, Bolivia to the southeast and the Ucayali Region of Peru to the south and west. It occupies an area of 152,581.4 km2, being slightly smaller...			from a misspelling of Aquiri, a local river; not from acre Acre The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related... (a measurement of area)
Alagoas Alagoas Alagoas is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil and is situated in the eastern part of the Northeast Region. It borders: Pernambuco ; Sergipe ; Bahia ; and the Atlantic Ocean . It occupies an area of 27,767 km², being slightly larger than Haiti...	Portuguese		plural of alagoa, a flooded field or swamp
Amapá Amapá Amapá is one of the states of Brazil, located in the extreme north, bordering French Guiana and Suriname to the north. To the east is the Atlantic Ocean, and to the south and west is the Brazilian state of Pará. Perhaps one of the main features of the state is the River Oiapoque, as it was once...	Aruak	amapá	"the land in the end" (documented in Sir Walter Raleigh Walter Raleigh Sir Walter Raleigh was an English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer. He is also well known for popularising tobacco in England.... 's account of Guyana Guyana Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British... as Land of Amapaia)
Amazonas			after the Amazon river Amazon River The Amazon of South America is the second longest river in the world and by far the largest by waterflow with an average discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined... , which was named by Spanish explorers who heard rumors that Amazons Amazons The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia... ("female mounted warriors", possibly from the Iranian ethnonym ha-mazan-, "warriors"; former supposed etimology—Greek Greek language Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;... α-μαστός a- mastos*, "with no breasts"— is considered false etymology False etymology Folk etymology is change in a word or phrase over time resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar one. Unanalyzable borrowings from foreign languages, like asparagus, or old compounds such as samblind which have lost their iconic motivation are... ) guarded the legendary city of El Dorado El Dorado El Dorado is the name of a Muisca tribal chief who covered himself with gold dust and, as an initiation rite, dived into a highland lake.Later it became the name of a legendary "Lost City of Gold" that has fascinated – and so far eluded – explorers since the days of the Spanish Conquistadors... in the middle of the forest
Bahia Bahia Bahia is one of the 26 states of Brazil, and is located in the northeastern part of the country on the Atlantic coast. It is the fourth most populous Brazilian state after São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, and the fifth-largest in size...	Old Portuguese	bahia	bay or harbor; the colonial province was called Bahia de Todos os Santos (All Saints Bay), because it was discovered on November 1, All Saints Day
Ceará Ceará Ceará is one of the 27 states of Brazil, located in the northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic coast. It is currently the 8th largest Brazilian State by population and the 17th by area. It is also one of the main touristic destinations in Brazil. The state capital is the city of...	Tupi Old Tupi language Old Tupi or Classical Tupi is an extinct Tupian language which was spoken by the native Tupi people of Brazil, mostly those who lived close to the sea. It belongs to the Tupi–Guarani language family, and which has a written history spanning the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries...	sy ara	"mother of the day" or "source of light", because it is a sunny land with sparse vegetation (therefore, few shadows)
Espírito Santo Espírito Santo Espírito Santo is one of the states of southeastern Brazil, often referred to by the abbreviation "ES". Its capital is Vitória and the largest city is Vila Velha. The name of the state means literally "holy spirit" after the Holy Ghost of Christianity...	Portuguese		"Holy Ghost/Spirit"
Goiás Goiás Goiás is a state of Brazil, located in the central part of the country. The name Goiás comes from the name of an indigenous community...			from the name of a long-extinct native people
Maranhão Maranhão Maranhão is a northeastern state of Brazil. To the north lies the Atlantic Ocean. Maranhão is neighbored by the states of Piauí, Tocantins and Pará. The people of Maranhão have a distinctive accent...	Spanish		Spanish spelling of Marañón Marañón Marañón may refer to:* Marañón, Navarre, a town and municipality in Spain* Marañón River, in Peru* Marañón Province, in Peru* Valle del Marañón, a valley in Peru* Gregorio Marañón , Spanish physician, historian, writer and philosopher... , another name for the Amazon River; from 1621 to 1709, the north of Brazil was styled the State of Maranhão, with its capital at São Luís
Mato Grosso Mato Grosso Mato Grosso is one of the states of Brazil, the third largest in area, located in the western part of the country.Neighboring states are Rondônia, Amazonas, Pará, Tocantins, Goiás and Mato Grosso do Sul. It also borders Bolivia to the southwest...	Portuguese		"thick grass" or "dense woods"
Mato Grosso do Sul Mato Grosso do Sul Mato Grosso do Sul is one of the states of Brazil.Neighboring Brazilian states are Mato Grosso, Goiás, Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Paraná. It also borders the countries of Paraguay and Bolivia to the west. The economy of the state is largely based on agriculture and cattle-raising...	Portuguese		a new state created in 1975 from the wealthier southern part of Mato Grosso state
Minas Gerais Minas Gerais Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...	early modern Portuguese		"General Mines"; separated from São Paulo in 1709 and placed under the direct control of the Portuguese Crown as the Captaincy Captaincy A captaincy is a historical administrative division of the former Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires. Each was governed by a captain general.-In the Portuguese Empire:... of São Paulo and the Mines, after the discovery of gold Gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a... , diamond Diamond In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions... s, and gems Gemstone A gemstone or gem is a piece of mineral, which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments... in the territory
Pará Pará Pará is a state in the north of Brazil. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas and Roraima. To the northwest it also borders Guyana and Suriname, and to the northeast it borders the Atlantic Ocean. The capital is Belém.Pará is the most populous state...	Tupi–Guarani	pará	river; probably because of the estuary of the Amazon River. The Pará River, near the state capital Belém Belém Belém is a Brazilian city, the capital and largest city of state of Pará, in the country's north region. It is the entrance gate to the Amazon with a busy port, airport and bus/coach station... , would be "River River".
Paraíba Paraíba Paraíba Paraíba Paraíba (Tupi: pa'ra a'íba: "bad to navigation"; Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation: is a state of Brazil. It is located in the Brazilian Northeast, and is bordered by Rio Grande do Norte to the north, Ceará to the west, Pernambuco to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the east...	Old Tupi Old Tupi language Old Tupi or Classical Tupi is an extinct Tupian language which was spoken by the native Tupi people of Brazil, mostly those who lived close to the sea. It belongs to the Tupi–Guarani language family, and which has a written history spanning the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries...		pará (river) + aíba (rough, bad), probably meaning "rough river"
Paraná Paraná (state) Paraná is one of the states of Brazil, located in the South of the country, bordered on the north by São Paulo state, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Santa Catarina state and the Misiones Province of Argentina, and on the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and the republic of Paraguay,...	Guarani Guaraní language Guaraní, specifically the primary variety known as Paraguayan Guaraní , is an indigenous language of South America that belongs to the Tupí–Guaraní subfamily of the Tupian languages. It is one of the official languages of Paraguay , where it is spoken by the majority of the population, and half of...	paraná	"wide river"; the words for "river", "large river", "lagoon", "sea" and "lake" have different meanings in Tupi, leading to confusion that Paraná meant sea
Pernambuco Pernambuco Pernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. To the north are the states of Paraíba and Ceará, to the west is Piauí, to the south are Alagoas and Bahia, and to the east is the Atlantic Ocean. There are about of beaches, some of the most beautiful in the...	Tupi		paranã (sea) + mbuka (hollow), referring to the coastal reefs; the state capital, Recife Recife Recife is the fifth-largest metropolitan area in Brazil with 4,136,506 inhabitants, the largest metropolitan area of the North/Northeast Regions, the 5th-largest metropolitan influence area in Brazil, and the capital and largest city of the state of Pernambuco. The population of the city proper... , is derived from the Portuguese for reef Reef In nautical terminology, a reef is a rock, sandbar, or other feature lying beneath the surface of the water ....
Piauí Piauí Piauí is one of the states of Brazil, located in the northeastern part of the country.Piauí has the shortest coastline of any of the non-landlocked Brazilian states at 66 km , and the capital, Teresina, is the only state capital in the north east to be located inland...	Tupi		piau (a type of river fish) and y (river), so Piau Fish River
Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...	Portuguese		"River of January"; the city harbor was discovered on January 1, 1502, and was believed to be the mouth of a river (such as the Tagus estuary which forms a bay by Lisbon Lisbon Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban... ). The state was named after the city, now its capital and formerly capital of Brazil.
Rio Grande do Norte Rio Grande do Norte Rio Grande do Norte is one of the states of Brazil, located in the northeastern region of the country, occupying the northeasternmost tip of the South American continent. Because of its geographic position, Rio Grande do Norte has a strategic importance. The capital and largest city is Natal...	Portuguese		"Great River of the North"
Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...	Portuguese		"Great River of the South"; the long and narrow Patos Lagoon was probably mistaken for a river; thus the name of the first important settlement, the town of Rio Grande
Rondônia Rondônia Rondônia is a state in Brazil, located in the north-western part of the country. To the west is a short border with the state of Acre, to the north is the state of Amazonas, in the east is Mato Grosso, and in the south is Bolivia. Its capital is Porto Velho. The state was named after Candido Rondon...			after Marshal Cândido Rondon Cândido Rondon Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, or Marechal Rondon was a Brazilian military officer who is most famous for his exploration of Mato Grosso and the Western Amazon Basin, and his lifelong support of Brazilian indigenous populations... , explorer of the region; the old name for the state was Guaporé Guaporé Guaporé may refer to:Guaporé River in Brazil/BoliviaGuaporé, Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil*The former name of Rondônia... , Tupi for "pathway to the lake"
Roraima Roraima Roraima is the northernmost and least populated state of Brazil, located in the Amazon region. It borders the states of Amazonas and Pará, as well as the nations of Venezuela and Guyana. The population is 400,000 and the capital is Boa Vista...	Yanomami	roro imã	"thundering mountain" according to some sources; the old name for the state was Rio Branco, Portuguese for "white river"
Santa Catarina Santa Catarina (state) Santa Catarina is a state in southern Brazil with one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. Its capital is Florianópolis, which mostly lies on the Santa Catarina Island. Neighbouring states are Rio Grande do Sul to the south and Paraná to the north. It is bounded on the east by...	Portuguese		after Saint Catherine of Alexandria Catherine of Alexandria Saint Catherine of Alexandria, also known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel and The Great Martyr Saint Catherine is, according to tradition, a Christian saint and virgin, who was martyred in the early 4th century at the hands of the pagan emperor Maxentius...
São Paulo São Paulo São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...	Portuguese		after the Jesuit monastery of São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga was the village that grew into São Paulo, Brazil in the region known as Campos de Piratininga... (Saint Paul Paul of Tarsus Paul the Apostle , also known as Saul of Tarsus, is described in the Christian New Testament as one of the most influential early Christian missionaries, with the writings ascribed to him by the church forming a considerable portion of the New Testament... of the Fields of Piratininga), built to Christianize native peoples; the state was named after its capital
Sergipe Sergipe Sergipe , is the smallest state of the Brazilian Federation, located on the northeastern Atlantic coast of the country. It borders on two other states, Bahia to the south and west and Alagoas to the north, and to the east is the Atlantic Ocean...			after the name of a native chief, Serijipe; another possible origin is from the Tupi siri jibe, a "brook with crabs"
Tocantins Tocantins (state) Tocantins is one of the states of Brazil. . The state was formed in 1988 out of the northern part of Goiás, and construction began on the capital, Palmas, in 1989, in contrast to most of the other cities in the state which date back to the Portuguese colonial period...	Tupi		tukan (toucan Toucan Toucans are members of the family Ramphastidae of near passerine birds from the Neotropics. The family is most closely related to the American barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, often colorful bills. The family includes five genera and about forty different species... , a South American bird) + tin (nose), or nose of toucan; the confluence of the Araguaia Araguaia River The Araguaia River or, in Portuguese, Rio Araguaia is one of the major rivers of Brazil, and the principal tributary of the Tocantins. It has a total length of approximately 2,627 km. Araguaia means "river of macaws" in the Tupi language.... and Tocantins Tocantins River The Tocantins is a river in Brazil, the central fluvial artery of the country. In the Tupi language, its name means "toucan's beak" . It runs from south to north for about 2,640 km. It is not really a branch of the Amazon River, although usually so considered, since its waters flow into the... rivers is shaped like a bird's beak; the region is also named "Bico do Papagaio" (Parrot Beak), however, the river had this name long before maps revealed the shape of the confluence
Distrito Federal Brazilian Federal District The Federal District is set apart for Brasília, the capital of Brazil. Located in a region called Planalto Central, or Central Plateau, the Federal District is divided in 29 administrative regions. Brasilia - place where the three branches of the Federal Government are located - is the main...	Portuguese		lit. "Federal District"; formerly the municipal territory of the national capital was called either Município Neutro (Neutral Municipality, from 1834 to 1889), Corte Imperial (Imperial Court, from 1822 to 1834) or Capital Federal (Federal Capital, from 1889 to 1934)

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