Compound names and agnomes

What a compound name is

In the *registro civil* (civil registry), a name has two parts: the *prenome*, which the family chooses, and the *sobrenome* (surname), which indicates ancestry. The *prenome* can have more than one word, and that is what is called a compound name: Maria Eduarda, João Pedro, Ana Júlia, José Carlos. Law 6.015/1973 addresses this directly in one case: twins with the same *prenome* must be registered “with a double *prenome* or a different full name” so that they can be told apart, and the same rule applies to siblings who are to be given the same *prenome* (art. 63 and sole paragraph). The CNJ's Código Nacional de Normas says that the *prenome* is freely chosen by the parents and that, when the family chooses a common name, the registrar must advise them on the advantages of adding given names or surnames to avoid homonymy (art. 515-B, *caput* and § 4). In adult life, a person may change the *prenome* once at the *cartório* without giving a reason, and that change can add, remove or reorder elements (art. 515-D, § 1). In other words, it is also possible to gain or lose the second word of the *prenome*.

Compound names in birth registrations

*Cartórios* register the full name, which is why civil registry data can count compound names. The Civil Registry Transparency Portal publishes a separate list of compound names registered by period. In the 2025 list, consulted in October 2026, Maria Cecília appeared first, followed by Maria Alice and Maria Helena, and João Miguel and João Pedro were among the top entries. These figures count registered births, not living people, and they change as new registrations enter the system.

How IBGE counts a compound name

1. 1

   1. Collection

   In the Censo 2022 household roster, the enumerator wrote each person's first name or compound name in the “name” field, and the remaining surnames in the “surname” field (Technical Note 01/2025).

2. 2

   2. Cleaning

   IBGE excluded one-letter words, two-letter words made of the same letter twice, and the connectors “da”, “das”, “de”, “des”, “do”, “dos”, “di”, “dis”, “du” and “dus”.

3. 3

   3. The first name

   The first name was split off at the first blank space. For publication, only it was considered.

4. 4

   4. The result

   Maria Eduarda goes into Maria; João Pedro goes into João. The second word is not counted.

What this changes in the numbers

The Censo 2022 total for Maria, 12,284,478 people, brings together everyone whose *prenome* starts with Maria: those named just Maria and those named Maria Eduarda, Maria Clara, Maria Cecília and so on. By contrast, the 181,846 people counted as Eduarda are only those who have Eduarda as the first word of the name. The same goes for male names: the 3,430,608 records of João include João Pedro and João Miguel, and the 1,624,478 of Pedro count only those who have Pedro as their first name. For this reason, census figures cannot tell how many people are named Maria Eduarda or João Pedro, and a name that is widely used as a second word may have a much smaller total in the census than the number of people who use it.

What an agnome is

The word comes from Latin *agnomen* and originally was the nickname that the Romans added to someone's name to highlight a virtue or an achievement (Michaelis). Priberam defines it as the name placed after the *cognome* (surname). In Brazil, the term refers to the elements placed at the end of a name to distinguish relatives with the same name. Michaelis records *Júnior* as “the son whose father has the same name”. A 2022 decision of the 2nd Public Records Court (*2ª Vara de Registros Públicos*) of São Paulo, citing legal doctrine, describes the agnome as a way to perpetuate a relative's name while also distinguishing the people and marking the kinship between them, as with *Filho*, *Neto* and *Sobrinho* (Portal do RI).

The most-used agnomes

• Júnior

  Used when the son has the same name as the father. It usually appears at the end of the name and can be abbreviated (Jr.).

• Filho

  Also marks the son who receives his father's name. (*Filho* means “son.”)

• Neto

  Marks the person who receives the name of a grandfather. (*Neto* means “grandson.”)

• Sobrinho

  Marks the person who receives the name of an uncle. (*Sobrinho* means “nephew.”)

The agnome in registration

The CNJ's Código Nacional de Normas, as worded by Provimento 153/2023, says that if the chosen name is identical to that of another family member, “é obrigatório o acréscimo de agnome ao final do nome a fim de distingui-los” (adding an agnome at the end of the name is mandatory in order to tell them apart) (art. 515-B, § 7). The same rule applies when an adult changes a *prenome* or surname (art. 515-N). The reverse also appears in *cartório* practice. In the 2022 decision cited above, the case was that of a child registered with the agnome *Filho* without having a name identical to the father's, and the court restated that the agnome serves to distinguish members of the same family with identical names. In a São Paulo Corregedoria (court oversight office) debate reported by Arpen-SP in 2014, the guidance presented was the same: the agnome should not be placed at the end if the father, uncle or grandfather does not have the same name. In the same debate it was noted that *Júnior* placed before the surname starts to function as a *prenome*.

Position, and Júnior as a prenome

A study published in the journal Crátilo (2019) observes that no federal law determines where in the name the agnome must appear; by tradition, *Júnior* comes at the end. The same study notes that IBGE data show *Júnior* also used as a *prenome*. In Censo 2022, 87,633 people had Junior (IBGE writes it without the accent) as the first word of their name. This figure does not count agnomes: a *Júnior* at the end of the name, after the surname, does not appear in IBGE's count of *prenomes*, which considers only the first name.

How each name enters the IBGE count

Frequently asked questions