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Origin of a very special Lastname When
I set out to investigate the origin of my last name I always encountered
with a great lack of information in that respect and in the instances
when I could find something in reference to the same, the source was not
very reliable and thus, I end up feeling dissatisfied. I
recall reading somewhere that my surname derived from the Old French
term “amerault” -Admiral- and there was no shortage of people
telling its origin was Arabic and it had derived from the expression “Omar-Allah!”,
Oh, Lord my
God!” used
by some muslim warrior to commend his soul to the All-Mighty before
combat. Nonetheless , time passed and while digging here and there, I
finally found facts much more simple and trustworthy to explain the
origin of the Amaral surname. And there is still another explanation for it, not that I accept it right away but sure it deserves a thought. For me it is a fact that -at least in part- there is sephardic jewish blood in our veins. The Amarals that kept their jewishness intact or those that resorted back into traditional judaism after becoming "new christians" or forced converts, tell us that our last name came from the ancient aramaic expression: "amar-al" where amar stands for word, or expression while Al means God, the Almighty. Thus, Amaral -once the hyphen is lost- means ¿"the one chosen by God to talk to..." like Noah or Moses were, for instance. In this particular case, the Amarals ought to be a select group of Cohens or Kahans -priests, zohars or wisemen- well suited to interpret the Law. Not to be confused with Levites, -a tribe of priestly warriors custodians of the Ark of the Covenant-.th Well, there you have two interesting versions of the origin of our lastname. By the way, iin modern hebrew the phrase from which -supposedly- this lastname comes is written as: "Amarel " and "Amara" and many families from Tel Aviv and Haifa, all from Sephardic (Iberian Jewish) origin, have it. I publicly express my gratitude to our relatives Leonard Amaral from Lisbon and Avi Amara from Tel Aviv for sharing their oppinions and for helping the Clan gather all the related information in this regard. But alas, at the very end, you are entitled to reach your own conclusions.
Iberian grape called "Amaral" but also "Cainho Longo" or "Azal Tinto". Now,
let´s go back again. As previously mentioned it is clear that
“Amaral”
is a also a term to denote a place or site where the
“amaras”
or bitter grapes were cultivated, in
the same form that Oakland
refers to a place where oak trees grow; Or when talking about a cornfield
we refer to an area where corn is grown. Similary, amaral
- according to those who believe in this version of its origin- was
originally nothing but a surname or nickname to identify those living
close to the vineyard were the "amaras"
were cultivated. This explains the existence still in our time of
the most ancient variant of our surname: “de
Amaral”
or “do
Amaral”
which in Galician or Portuguese signifies “those
living or working in the amaras plantation...”.
This is what our surname signifies if we are to believe this version.
On the other hand there is the fact that during several centuries -8th
through 9th- the sole inhabitants of the area known as Rias
Baixas in
Galicia and Minho
and Beira Alta
in Portugal (mostly in Viseu and Guarda) were Moors (mixture of arab and
negro-nubian people) original to Mauritania and North Western Africa,
along with several Iberian jewish or sephardic families, so, it is
still unclear as to whether this surname was used to denote the sour
and caustic
character of these people or the dark olive pigment of
their skins and could very well be for both. In my family tree in each
generation there is prevalence of this temperamental characteristic as
described and some are born with dark skin tones similar to this sour and
dark grapes precisely: “amaras
e pretas”
bitter and dark. Between these two versions might be the true origin
of a lastname we feel so proud about. Finally, that we, the Amarals are the result of the mixture of the germanic visigoths with the moorish and iberian jewish families put into servitude after the recovering drive of the Leonese, Asturian and Gallegan christians coming from the north is an undeniable fact, inspite of which version for the origin of our lastname we feel more inclined to. After the First International Gathering of the Amaral Clan held in Mexico in July 2003, there is going to be a Second General Gathering or "Amaralada", this time in Portugal during the first week of August, 2005 in Viseu, Guarda, Midöes and Lisbon. A lot of information may be gathered then with the help of all the participants. Let us be prepared for this magnificent event. See you there! Prof. Rogelio B. Amaral
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