Notes on toponymic concurrence and competitionof place names in Brazil colony

Abstract

In this paper, we describe qualitative aspects related to toponymic variation in past synchronies. For that, we selected place names registered in documents concerning donation of lands of the captaincy of Sergipe Del Rey dated from the first decades of interethnic contact between Iberian colonizers and indigenous peoples. In that context, two naming systems started to coexist in the geographical space: a pre-existing indigenous toponymy and a new nomenclature under the colonizers’ ideological sign. Considering the competition and concurrence of place names, we identified cases of toponymic change, but also of incorporation, in maps and records, of an indigenous layer prior to the colonization process.