What did the creator of Ferrari and the actress Claudia Raia have in common? In an unlikely partnership, they may have contributed to one of the biggest trends among Brazilian children in the last fifteen years: the choice of the name Enzo to register their children.
O IBGE proves what can be seen in schools and playgrounds across Brazil: between the 1930s and 1980s, only 1,199 boys were registered with the name Enzo across the country.
On April 15, 1997, the first child of the actor couple Claudia Raia and Edson Celulari was born, named Enzo Motta Raia Celulari. The name began to spread and closed the 1990s timidly, but with double the number of records, with another 2,088 boys baptized that way. The leap came next: in the first decade of the 2000s, according to IBGE, there were already 44,056 Brazilians registered as Enzo.
The son of professor Bruna Martins Raposo was born in August 2012. The choice would fall on an Italian name, and Enzo beat the other options, Lucca and Filipo, “in honor of Enzo Ferrari”, creator of the racing team. And the reference worked, as the boy “loves racing”, in his mother’s words. Enzo Ferrari was an Italian mechanic who fell in love with motorsport. He was a driver for Alfa Romeo and created Ferrari in 1925 as a racing team.
“At the time he was born, many people were surprised, since we only knew Cláudia Raia’s son. It really wasn’t a name that family and friends liked at first. Then it turned into a fever,” he explains. The teacher proves this in practice. “Today, he has some colleagues with the same name, and as a teacher I have about five Enzos in my classes. This is the year in which I have the most students with this name”, she guarantees.
Sibelly Souza Lopes, 30 years old, has a 10-year-old Enzo. His name is motivated by a story of overcoming. The receptionist was pregnant when her brother suffered a motorcycle accident and was admitted to the emergency room at Hospital João XXIII, in Belo Horizonte. “One day, I went to visit him, and told him that I was expecting a child, but I didn’t even know the sex yet. He said: sister, if I ask you something, will you do it? If it’s a boy, put Enzo on it”, she reveals.
She found the request strange and questioned him about the reason. “It’s just that today here at the hospital I was hearing about Enzo on the radio, I went to research the meaning and I thought it was beautiful, it really touched me’. Then I decided to put it on my brother’s account,” she explains.
The meaning
In the book ‘Tell me what it’s called and I’ll tell you why’, writer Enzo Caffarelli searches for the origins of common names in Italy.
He points out that Enzo is the short form of Vincenzo, which has its origins in the Latin ‘Vincentius’, which means ‘the winner’.
The author also shows how Enzo corresponds to Heinz in German, which in turn is an abbreviation for Heinrich – therefore, Enrico and Henrique.
“Vincenzo contains the spirit of conquest that was typical of ancient Rome, then inherited by the Christians of the first centuries”, says the writer.
He remembers that in the 2000s the Enzos invaded not only Brazil, but also France. Caffarelli does not indicate the reason, but it would not be surprising that the influence comes from Enzo Zidane, son of the French player who won the world against Brazil in 1998, who is now successful on social media.
Fashion and films
But why did the name suddenly become one of the most chosen? Bruna remembers that “the name became popular due to that joke between Enzo and Valentina, right? Even at my Carnival my friends dressed up as Enzo and Valentina. So I think it was really a fashion. Although I think the name is beautiful!,” she states.
Adam Driver played Enzo Ferrari in the cinema
Ferrari The Movie / Disclosure
And there was also the film ‘My Friend Enzo’, from 2019, with Amanda Seyfried and Milo Ventimiglia, in which a driver adopts a golden retriever and decides to name him Enzo in memory of the creator of Ferrari. Recently, in 2023, the The story of the Italian businessman himself came to the screen in “Ferrari”. In the film, Adam Driver plays Enzo Ferrari at a crucial moment when the company needs to overcome debts and win races to become the biggest reference in motorsport in history.
Another fact about the 1990s: the decade marked an era of five titles for Michael Schumacher with Ferrari, the Italian team founded by then-mechanic Enzo Ferrari after World War II, which became the most desired car brand in the world. Motorized works of art, vibrant red and with a wild horse logo, that appeal to eleven out of every ten motorsport enthusiasts.
Film ‘The art of racing in the rain’ was translated in Brazil as ‘Meu Amigo Enzo’
20th Century Studios / Reproduction
But the ‘revolution’ in registry offices and playgrounds would still be seen in the following decade: Enzo, who until then walked alone and far from the list of names most remembered by his parents, gains the company of Gabriel. And Enzo Gabriel becomes the most registered name for boys in Brazil in 2017, 2018 and 2019, according to the transparency portal of the Civil Registry Offices in Brazil.
The record comes in 2018, when 18,156 Enzo Gabriel and another 4,310 Enzo were born, or 22,466 boys in total. In 2020, Enzo Gabriel is the second most chosen name and, in 2021, the third. In 2022, the name Enzo leaves the list of the 50 most registered names in Brazilian registry offices after five years.
It doesn’t feel like the end of an era, though: in 2023, Lorenzo is the 17th most chosen name and Enzo Gabriel is in 21st place, with 8,029 registrations, among those preferred by Brazilian moms and dads when registering their child.
