The assimilation of Italian immigrants was certainly so intense in the Southeast region of Brazil that you are often surprised by situations that happened within your own family or in your neighborhood. Ulisses G Duarte is my uncle and also my father's brother. My aunt, S G Duarte, his widow, is now 90 years old. I regularly go to aunt S's house, just as I regularly visit her children's house that is, obviously, the house of my cousins, who also sign G Duarte, just as my father signed, my mother also signed, my paternal grandparents signed, my paternal great-grandparents also signed, and so on. My mother also signed my Dad's 'G Duarte', but kept the 'P' from her father, my maternal grandfather (when married, she adopted my father's full surname, also keeping the 'P' surname from her father, my maternal grandfather, who would become my godfather at baptism as a special deference to my father for maintaining, in his grandson, the lineage of his surname 'P', typically Portuguese, and my father even agreed with the deletion of the G, so that I would not have an extremely long name. I sign P Duarte and not G Duarte. My first name is a compound name). My maternal grandfather had only two daughters and adopted a son, my adoptive uncle who already had a baptismal name when he was adopted by my maternal grandparents. My mother is P G Duarte, I am P Duarte, my middle brother, like me, is P Duarte and my younger sister, like my mother, is P G Duarte. My middle brother has a compound first name just like me. My sister has a simple first name. I also have a foster brother, but he was already there at home when I was born. He is the son of a father's brother who died in a car accident with his wife and my father and mother took care of the boy. For a change, he also signs G Duarte. Continuing the story I intend to tell: I met N Lorenzatto when I was 23 years old. I had just joined to the auditor career, that is my current job until today. N Lorenzatto, an experienced auditor, was assigned to train me. For me it was a professional relationship. I was just a young man at the beginning of his career who would later become Lorenzatto's boss. Him: middle age, gray hair, very blue eyes, pink skin, medium height, not much different from the other thousands of descendants of immigrants from Veneto who live in BH. One day Lorenzatto asks me: What is your father's name? I reply: His first name is F, like me. And what was your father's last name, he asks again. I answered: G Duarte. I don't have my father's 'G'. The 'G' has been suppressed by the 'P' which comes from my maternal grandfather. Then he surprises me by saying: I'm your dear Aunt S's brother. I answer him: It is! I don't know any Lorenzatto in my family and that's not Aunt S's last name. He answers me: Your Aunt S's maiden name is S Lorenzatto and he adds: You were luckier to inherit your grandfather's maternal surname. My sister dropped my father's surname when she married your uncle and so, my nieces carry only their father's family surname, Ulisses, your uncle. Well, the rest is history.
There are other surprising cases involving me and the Lorenzattos, but family stories are too big and I'm too lazy to write them, lol.
Just one more point about the complete assimilation of Italians in southeastern Brazil. It is the story of another coworker, my age or a little older than me, who lives in the neighborhood where I was born in BH, who fanatically supports the same football team that I support, who speaks Portuguese with typical accent of those who were born and raised in this neighborhood and which is considered the typical accent of BH (my case) and with which I always maintained a great relationship and he and I always admired each other's work. I always thought that he was my countryman, the son of Italian immigrants and I only found out that he was an Italian born in Turin when I had access to his functional file on a occasion when I took over a manager and was surveying the professional experience of those who would work with me. It is true that I always found it strange that his parents did not translate his first name into Portuguese. His baptism first name is Alessandro Giuseppe. Then I saw that the name could not be translated into Portuguese since he was born there. Living and learning!