Why is an apostrophe used when Rivera starts with a consonant? Why not de Rivera?
For others scratching their heads like me:
Paquito D’Rivera is a Cuban-American alto saxophonist, clarinetist and composer.
He was born Francisco de Jesús Rivera Figueras and chose the D’Rivera based on a French naming style.
He lives in North Jersey, overlooking the Hudson and thus a great view of NYC.
There you have it: Pseudo-French spelling.
Reminds me of the time Mistinguette chopped the final -e off her name to go with her short hair, becoming famous as Mistinguett (which is pseudo-English).
Thanks for that, I thought maybe he was a South American revolutionary or something.
So it’s just a grace note?
No, it’s the Crux of the Biscuit.
D’Souza is a fairly common Portuguese-language last name.
IIRC you are a linguist. But French doesn’t contract “de” when the next word starts with a consonant.
Jeanne d’Arc
but
Jean de Florette
or
Jean de la Fontaine
I know, that was the whole point of my calling it “pseudo-French.” Imitating the appearance of French like a cargo cult without understanding how it works.
Snapple used to sell a cream soda under the name “Crème d’Vanille.” At one point, they ran a TV commercial showing French-speaking customers pointing out that it should actually be “de Vanille.”
Perhaps the most famous person (for those of us on the SDMB) named D’Souza is Dinesh D’souza, an American conservative commentator who was born in India and came to the U.S. The Portuguese ruled Goa, on the western coast of India, in around the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Dinesh D’souza was born in somewhere around there. It appears that many Indians living around there have Portuguese last names despite not being of Portugese descent.
What about Rosie O’Donnell?
That’s an Irish or Scottish name. Apostrophe rules are different.
BTW, there is a surname D’Leau which I found a few instances of by googling. One of the thoughts on the origin of the name D’Lo (town in Mississippi) is a modification of D’Leau.
D’Leau apparently comes from the French words for “from the water”, which are “de”, “le”, and “eau”.
Then there’s former New York Jets offensive tackle D’Brickashaw Ferguson, whose unusual first name was inspired by Father Ralph de Bricassart of The Thorn Birds.
There’s a last name de Briquessart in France. “Brique” means “brick”. The Thorn Birds takes place in Australia. Apparently someone in de Bricassart’s ancentry changed their name from de Briquessart to de Bricassart. How far back itsn’t clear.
I meant “ancestry” and “isn’t”, of course.
It sure is, Brazilian too. However, have you seen that spelling more than “de Souza”?
Well that would be Ó Domhnaill if you wanted to make it more “Irish”, i.e., there is no apostrophe (I believe it is an accent).
I associate it with Indian ethnicity (as Wendell_Wagner noted). There are Canadian journalists named Francis D’Souza and Steven D’Souza, for instance.
In proper French it would be de l’eau