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It's the feminine because it refers to the family, and "família" is feminine. e.g. "João Ferreira" would be "John, [of the] blacksmith [family]". That's also th
by lvxferre 5y ago
It's the feminine because it refers to the family, and "família" is feminine. e.g. "João Ferreira" would be "John, [of the] blacksmith [family]". That's also the reason a few surnames include de/da/do (of/of the).
- rodelrod 5y agoThis explanation makes little syntactic sense. A bit of googling gives me the explanation of "ferreira" being an old word for "iron mine", which to be honest is coherent with modern portuguese forms like "pedreira", toponymics ("ferreira" is a common place name), and the way names come about (João da Ferreira would own or work in the iron mine, or just come from one of the villages where there was an iron mine).