Help with a Brazilian name.

Factual Questions
1

Heloisa Pinheiro is known to be the lady who inspired the song “The Girl from Ipanema.” That is her married name.

Her maiden name is given as Heloisa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto. Can this be distilled down to two words, first name/last name? If so, which of those four names following Heloisa would be used as the last name?

One site gives it as Heloisa Mendes, which doesn’t seem to make sense. Am I correct in perceiving that as wrong (assuming that Heloisa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto is correct)?

I’d like to be able to tell folks that the song was inspired by Heloisa ______, since she wasn’t yet Heloisa Pinheiro at the time of said inspiration. I’m hoping it doesn’t take four words to fill in the blank.

2

I don’t know what language this site is in but from here:

So, I’ll go out on a limb and say Heloisa Pinto would be correct.
Bolding mine.

3

To further confuse the issue, I found one article that said it was Heloisa Eneida.

I know that at least some Latin American customs for names are different from those in the U.S., so I wouldn’t be certain that any of the possibilities mentioned so far are definitely right or definitely wrong.

4

A bit about the difficulties with Brazilian names.

I did a search on “The Girl from Ipanema” + Heloisa. I found four sites saying “Heloisa Eneida”, other than that, it is “Heloisa Pinheiro”. I’d say her name, at age 18, was “Heloisa Eneida”.

5

In general in Portuguese influenced cultures, the last surname is the paternal (and in our view “main”) surname. In Spanish cultures, it is usually the first surname.

6

Thanks for the information and the link. I think I see why many sites choose to simply use Heloisa Pinheiro!

7

In case you’re curious at all, the site is in Dutch.

8

Well, from what I can figure from the names of my wife’s family, the last surname is usually the paternal surname, and the penultimate surname is the maternal surname. Since most people in Brazil refer to themselves using their first name and both surnames, my guess for her correct maiden name would be:

Heloisa Paes Pinto.

The sites listing her name as “Heloisa Eneida” seem to be using a first-name(s) only policy. Sort of like referring to Tiger Woods as simply “Tiger”.

9

I once asked a female professor from Brazil how she wanted her name written in a conference program. She had to think a moment. She needed to have the name she is best known for, her father’s name(who had paid handsomely for her education) and her husband. Then she corrected the name of her university:
Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo Fundação Getúlio Vargas. Arrghh!