Urban toponymy of Caarapó – MS

beyond the homage to people

Abstract

This study falls within the field of Onomastics – the area dedicated to the study of proper names – and, as a specific focus, investigates a set of urban toponyms, that is, proper names of places located in urban areas. Previous research, such as Mori (2007), Tavares  (2017), and Isquerdo (2023), has shown that urban toponymy often serves as a space for homage, especially to individuals. This study, however, aims to examine urban toponyms from Caarapó (MS) that have other motivations, that is, those not included in the categories (Dick, 1990a) based on personal names and/or surnames. The data – the toponyms – were collected from a municipal map provided by the city hall, resulting in a corpus of 72 names of streets, lanes, and avenues. The data were then organized in tables and analyzed. As the study focuses on the motivation behind the names, among the results it stands out that the most frequent motivational categories, excluding anthroponymic references, are phytotoponyms (19), chorotoponyms (17), and zootoponyms (11), exemplified respectively by Travessa das Flores and Rua dos Ipês, Rua Nazaré and Rua Paraná, Rua das Araras and Rua dos Tucanos. The analysis also reveals that, although religious names (hierotoponyms) do not constitute a predominant category, references to this cultural aspect appear in several toponyms, particularly among the chorotoponyms, including names of biblical cities. Furthermore, despite the historical and contemporary presence of Indigenous communities in the municipality, an erasure of elements of their culture can be observed in the urban toponymy. This absence may be understood as a result of political decisions made by those responsible for naming public spaces.