A toponímia cearense em documentos do século XIX

Abstract

Toponymy is the science of proper names of places. Toponymic studies have proved great importance for the rescue of cultural, ideological and linguistic features of groups of humans who lived or live in a given place, as well as for the recovery of the physical aspects of the place itself. Based on these considerations, the aim os this study was to describe the toponymic motivation of 54 place names out of the 67 ones recorded in the records of complaint edited by Ximenes (2006) and to describe the toponomastic profile of Ceará from nineteenth century to the present days, in order to identify possible toponomastic changes occurring over time. The theoretical fundaments and methodological procedures that guided this research was based on the contributions of Dick (1992), who described a taxonomic toponymic model featuring 27 taxes, out of which 11 are physical natured and 16 are of antropocultural nature. Data were recorded in lexical-toponymic cards which is the model proposed by Dick (2004). It was found that 53% of the toponyms are of antropocultural nature and 47% are of physical nature. From literature and documental research, it was possible to reconstruct important aspects of history, geography, culture and linguistics of Ceará through the analysis of its place names.