Hi Luis, I really appreciate your story! My daughter's best friend is Brazilian, named Beatriz Carvalho, everyone at school pronounces it Carval-ho just like you said about Coelho Street. Too funny! I know there are Freitas on the mainland and Azores, my grandmother is Azorean, they just are still rare to come by, for me anyway, in my area. Interestingly, my name before I married was Denise De Freitas; while reading about the recent high school graduates in the town next to mine last year there was a Denise De Freitas! Even more ironic is that her brother is Joseph De Freitas, and so is my brother!! In the US my uncle's Goncalves was mutated to Gonzales. And how about Pereira as Perry, too funny! Denise D'Antona In a message dated 1/19/2006 5:12:07 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, luisbeal@yahoo.com writes: Freitas is a very common name not just in Madeira but also in the continent, and I am sure the Azores also. I am portuguese born and raised but I live in the US and I have to say that I have heard many portuguese names pronounced in such a way that I did not recognize them as portuguese. I have to see them written down to know. I am sure you can pronounce your name the portuguese way but I have to share what I have seen so far happen in this country. For example my oldest son is named Miguel and he has been called Maguel, Meigue'l, Migu'e'l, Magu'e'l. And this is also a spanish name so one would think it would be pronounced correctly. My favorite name screw up is a street in California called Coelho St. It is pronounced Co^e'ho^ with the hard english H sound, it sounds very interesting. Although the "lh" sound is a very hard sound for an american to pronounce (like the "th" sound is for a portuguese) the way the word is pronounced here is even harder than the original form.! I remember the guy who told us about this street name was getting frustrated because we did not recognize it and he kept repeating it and saying that it was a portuguese name. Well he was right but I could not tell until I saw it written down. And then, of course, there are the portuguese names that have been completely americanized and impossible to recognize as portuguese. This is the case of my uncle who moved from Madeira to the US, his last name was Rodrigues da Ressurreicao but his children go by Rogers. I always get a kick out of that one. Luis Beal